


Dark Bound

by DireWriting



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, M/M, Non-Consensual Bondage, Pain, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:01:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 87,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5996014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DireWriting/pseuds/DireWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riku, released from Ansem's control believes he has the chance to go back to Destiny Islands. When the Master of Darkness comes to claim him yet again, there isn't a single thing he can do to change his fate. Now he's forced to become something, and possibly someone else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Dream

_The dream was always the same._

_It was one of the unbearably hot days on Destiny Islands. One of those days where no one would want to be even near the outdoors. It would be so sticky and almost suffocating that only the few, the nearly insane would be even trying to tolerate the weather let alone enjoy it. Riku would remember those days as the ones where he was sure that even crawling to the center of a glacier wouldn't alleviate the heat._

_Of course, these were the days that Sora and Riku lived for._

_There wouldn't be a single soul other than them left on their island. And there was no doubt that it was their island. All the kids who journeyed to there knew of the unwritten rule that whatever Riku said, went. No argument, no snide remarks, and certainly no complaining would be tolerated. For everyone knew that Riku was not only the strongest kid to rule the island with an iron fist, but also had the least amount of patience. There was something to be said of the kid who could knock three others down flat into the sand with hardly any effort. No one even tried to fight him anymore after the infamous battle of the previous year._

_All in all, not a bad way to spend one's summer._

_Which is why they were there, on that one little island in the middle of a blazing sun lying side by side in the shade of the palm trees listlessly staring across the sand towards the oncoming waves of the rising tide. It would be time to set sail for home soon if they didn’t want to fight the force of the currents, but in that moment it didn’t matter. In that moment there was nothing else on the entirety of the world other than themselves, the heat, and the occasional breeze._

_“...I really think that we could try before we have to go back to school.” Sora pleaded. “I mean, it’s not like we have a lot of other things to do.”_

_“It’s dangerous.” Riku snapped back a little stronger than he had hoped to. Honestly he could never remember what it was that Sora was suggesting in the first place, but it didn’t make him any less angry about it. He softened his tone. “What I mean is, we need to make sure we’re ready first before trying anything.”_

_“Maybe next year?” The pained look in Sora’s eyes was always enough to make him reevaluate his decision._

_“Alright fine. Next year.” He sighed. “But if you both hold me back-”_

_“We won’t!” Sora nearly leapt up out of excitement. “We’ll both work really hard!”_

_It took a force of will for Riku not to roll his eyes. Sora at his best was maybe a just a little bit too rambunctious, and at his worst… well, there would be days that Riku wondered why they were friends at all. Regardless, Riku appreciated the burnette’s enthusiasm all the same. At the end of the day, Sora would forever be there to encourage Riku even in the small things. In turn, whatever Sora wanted Riku ensured he received. If Sora wanted to swim, they would swim. If Sora wanted to get ice cream, they would. If Sora had ever wanted a shooting star, Riku would have done everything possible to make it so. The unspoken truth was that it was Sora who truly ruled their little island with Riku as his everlasting enforcer._

_Next thing he knew they were in the secret place, both sitting on the floor together drawing figures in the dirt. The air around them was chill, almost damp, and still. Completely, entirely still. Every breath he took felt almost like he was taking it from the tree itself. Life here as opposed to the beach was quiet and reserved. Where the waves and the wind never ceased their churning just a little way beyond, it was here that the two friends could find the most peaceful of serenities._

_“Yours looks a little strange Riku. What is that you’re drawing?” Sora peered over his shoulder even though they had both agreed they wouldn’t see each other’s pictures until after they were finished._

_“It’s…” Riku started and then realized he had no idea. “Something I just came up with.”_

_Sora narrowed his eyes. “It looks like a wing. A wing with an eye on the end of it? Is there an eye on the end of it? Riku, where do you get these ideas?”_

_“I don’t know.” He shrugged, rubbing out the image with his hand before Sora could make any more comments about it. “Just sort of popped into my head. I didn’t think it had to be a good drawing. Besides, I don’t have to look over to know you’re drawing another one of your stupid little paopu figures.”_

_“They’re not stupid!” Sora retorted and gave into a deeply exaggerated pout._

_“Well it’s not original.”_

_“I can do something original!” With that Sora vigorously dug his finger in the dirt and crudely drew what appeared to be a few large circles and various lines surrounding them._

_“What is that?” Riku tilted his head and found it didn’t help his perspective of it at all._

_“It’s a bike rolling down a hill.” Sora said with more pride than was acceptable for something he only drew in ten seconds flat._

_“With no rider?”_

_“It doesn’t need a rider.”_

_“Right.” And with that Riku turned and laid his back down directly on top of the picture._

_“What-!” Sora nearly shrieked. “Why did you-! Why?!”_

_“It needed someone on it to keep it from crashing.” He replied, trying to conceal the best of smirks on his face. “Besides I’m tired. Think I’m going to take a nap.”_

_Whatever else his friend was going to say got lost in the ensuing laughter that made the whole room vibrate. Sora always had the very best of laughs. There was something about it that was incredibly contagious even when there was really nothing funny. Riku often wondered as the years went by if laughter didn’t keep him going those hot summer days._

_The room darkened slowly as he closed his eyes and relaxed so that the rhythm of the room dulled down to a single hum. Sora’s muted movements didn’t at all alert him as the world slowly seemed to fade out to nothing. Something, somewhere trailed at the edges of his consciousness and with a brief spark of clarity Riku realized what was happening._

_Someone was caressing his hair. Mere ghost touches as fingers combed through his silver bangs and touched his scalp so lightly he wasn’t even sure it had happened._

_It was pleasant. It was… nice. It was…_

 

_The absolute last thing he was ever going to do._

_“Don’t hurt Sora!” Riku screamed up and behind him as he hunched over the body of his badly beaten friend. He couldn’t see him. He never could see him. It never changed though. Sora’s wheezing and the muted wet sound as something very hard and very fast rammed straight into Riku’s ribs._

_“It’s his fault for poking his nose around someone else’s business.”_

_The pain was real. The pain had to be real. Riku curled his body tighter over Sora’s, using every bit of his strength to brace for another inevitable impact. He needed to be stronger. He needed to withstand more than just pain. Everything spun as he was sent reeling off to the side and crashed into the pavement in front of their school. His ears rang and heard the voices. Voices that all spoke together, a jumble of different people from different places that sounded as if they were just in front of him._

_“It’s surprising he didn’t suffer any broken bones.”_

_“Riku, can you show me that move one more time?”_

_“What if there are other worlds out there?”_

_“Meteor showers don’t usually happen this time of year.”_

_“You don’t have to apologize for what happened that day. You did the right thing. ”_

_“In darkness you can find true power.”_

_“You really… are my best friend… you know.”_

_Golden eyes and a vicious smile._

_“The true chosen Master of the Keyblade shouldn’t have to stoop so low as to petty sword fighting tactics. With all I have to offer you, you could be the most devastating warrior of them all. With my intellect and your raw strength we could rule the worlds. It is high time we put all this potential to good use. Yes, you’ve gone far too long without any real power. I, Ansem, shall remedy that.”_

~❣~


	2. Terrible Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fairly standard issue fan writing stuff. Kingdom Hearts and the characters within aren’t my creations. If they were, I’d do very h̶o̶r̶r̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ _wonderful_ things to them. I don’t write this to make a profit. Everything within this work is fictitious, as much as I would love to live in the Hollow Bastion castle for the rest of life… But that’s neither here nor there.
> 
> The warnings are there for a reason! Read them all. Respond accordingly. There, you have been warned about the warnings.
> 
> A little more seriously though, this story, set in the Kingdom Hearts universe established throughout the games, is most definitely **_NOT_** canon. It starts off within the setting of Kingdom Hearts 1 and quickly spirals off into it’s own path. You’ll see it when it gets there, pretty blatant. As such, for the sake of this story I’ve used _elements_ that have been set by the games but have decided to do my own sort of spin-off. So before I get comments of “_____ never said ____ like that!” or “This doesn’t fit into the Kingdom Hearts timeline because of _______!”, _I know_. You may also notice that three main anthropomorphic characters (Donald, Goofy, and Mickey) simply do not exist in this story. There are just some things that are better left that way.
> 
> Think of this as a “what would have been if things have played out a little differently”.
> 
> In conclusion: Not mine. Not real. Proceed with the understand of what you’re getting into. Don’t go trying to tie in where every part of this story coincides with the games. If you do that I promise you’re just going have a bad time.
> 
> With all that said, thank you dear reader. Welcome, and enjoy.

“What should I do?”

An innocent question with a not so innocent answer.

“It’s really quite simple.” Was the answer that he later wished he had never heard. “Open yourself to the darkness. That is all. Let your heart, your being, become darkness itself.”

Sora had never been stronger than Riku. In terms of the purely physical there was nothing that the two could even be considered comparable. While they had contested each other multiple times over their nearly lifelong friendship there was never a time that could have been considered a true competition. Never, until that day. Who could have known that sometime in the future, not even on their own world, they would have been competing not with their bodies or minds but with their hearts. As if hearts were somehow the measure of how fast he could swing a weapon or read an opponent’s moves. Even in this though, Sora couldn’t be stronger than Riku. He just couldn’t.

“Become… darkness…”

Riku breathed slowly and on the exhale felt as the darkness gathered around his body. Neither hot nor cold, it felt more like the weighted presence that pressed increasingly more firm against his skin. He found himself reminded of a particular night on Destiny Islands when he had used Darkness to escape to other worlds. That fateful night when his, Sora’s and Kairi’s fates were forever changed. This time though the Darkness seemed more tangible than just the mere wisps that had enveloped him then, standing front of his best friend with his arm extended. This time it seemed stronger than it had been before.

"Open yourself now, or be destroyed by the dark power." A voice that sounded very far away instructed. "Your determination is strong, but your fear is greater."

"I-" Riku gasped, his arms and legs tingling. "I'm... not afraid!"

"Show me." The voice hissed right next to his ear startling him enough that if his movement hadn’t been impaired he would have jumped away out of surprise.

With a burst the darkness exploded around him and everything in his vision went black. What followed for a few terrifying moments was only the sounds of his own stuttered breathing. He paused, waiting for the sensations of something to come over him. He anticipated the lurch in power, the resounding surge that would overwhelm his senses and bring him the strength he so desperately sought. Strength that could prove that he was the hero that the Keyblade had so foolishly forsaken. Sora would have nothing on him after he had finally accepted this last vestige of dark energies.

_The power will come in time. But not before I’ve shown you your full potential._

Riku sprang back, eyes wide and finally able to see.The voice, the man in the hood’s voice sounded like it was right behind him but there was nothing in any direction that he looked. He was alone in the great halls of Hollow Bastion just like he was before the man had appeared. Alone, Riku was painfully aware of just how vulnerable he was in the place he had been calling his home for the last few months. He had taken time to learn a good majority of the castle, but with how many errands he was sent on by it’s “Mistress of Evil”, he had little time to fully explore the place. He could sense that something was nearby, something stronger and far more sinister than he had ever faced before and he doubted if he could overcome it in his current state.

"Where are you?" Riku fought to steady his voice from cracking.

_My boy. I am everywhere._ A light chuckle resonated all around him and Riku backed himself up against a wall.

Poised, he wouldn’t let himself be taken off guard if he could help it. Sure, he had fought a few Heartless that could go invisible before, but at least with those you could still sense their forms restlessly moving through the air. There would always be the light clicking of their paws touching the ground or the foul stench of their breath as they tried to worm their way closer to attack. With this man there was nothing. No stirring of even the candlelight to indicate that he even truly existed. All there was about the man were the faint whiffs of something musky and… sweet?

_I have a present for you._ The voice whispered so close that Riku’s whole body shuddered. A deep power gathered in his right hand and his mind instinctively recoiled at what he was grasping.

A Keyblade. A true, solid Keyblade.

“It- It can’t be.” Riku held onto it just a fraction tighter, wondering if this one too was going to disappear from him.

_I assure you, it is entirely for you. This is your Keyblade and in time you will master this far beyond what anyone else has ever known._

“How? I thought Sora’s Keyblade was the one I was supposed to have.”

_A true Keyblade Master doesn’t need others to conjure a Keyblade for them. You’ve always been able to do this boy. I’ve just amplified what powers you’ve had and awakened those that have been dormant. This Keyblade also has a very special ability to it, different than that little friend of yours has. With it, we shall be able to finally unlock this world’s heart._

"Unlock..." Riku desperately tried to piece together everything he had ever learned about Keyblades in his mind. "The princesses are supposed to do that. That's what Sora's here for. Maleficent-"

_Will be destroyed._ The voice now almost took a tangible form directly in front of him and Riku thought he could barely catch the glimmer of golden eyes blazing. _If Sora was strong enough to challenge you, then he most certainly has nothing to fear from her. Unless, of course, you would like to give her a... sporting chance?_

"Why would I want to do that?" Riku hissed.

_Could be entertaining and an excellent way to test your new abilities. Besides, for all her conniving and scheming wouldn't it be a delicacy to see her true form exposed?_

"I can do that?" He probed, catching glimpses of white hair and a twisted smile. What he could see was like the reflection of someone on the surface of a pool of water, too brief and incomplete. The visions he could make out was too erratic for him to get any good idea of the person underneath the cloak so that he wondered if he had really seen anything at all.

_Did I say that the only thing you could do was unlock the hearts of worlds? No, you ignorant boy._ The voice got testy with him, expressing barely concealed irritation. _You may unlock the hearts of anyone, so long as you are able to drive the Keyblade into them._

"Can Sora do it too?"

_'Can' and 'would be willing to' are two different questions I believe. Do you really think he'd be brave enough to stab someone in order to unlock their heart?_

Riku's silence was all the affirmation the voice needed.

_You have nothing to fear._ It continued. _You will only be providing a yet another test for your friend to pass before you show him his true place in these worlds. With the power that I will provide, no strength of heart will be able to withstand you. Things will once again go back to the way they ought to be._

Almost like a directed breeze, something gentle moved through Riku's hair tucking it just behind his set jaw. His body was slow to react as something tugged at the back of his mind, numbing it and slowing the rest of his clouded thoughts. Ghost fingers traced along his cheek and rested just above his brow, barely perceptible but somehow still very much tangible. The touch was firm and direct, entirely with purpose. Riku's mind dredged down into the darkness all while he had the persistent thought that there was something... something he had forgotten to ask.

"What's..." He felt like it was taking all his effort alone just to speak. His eyes shut and the world dropped out of his senses. "What's your name...?"

Riku's body glowed as the stranger finally wrenched control of his own body away from him.

The voice growled menacingly.

_Ansem. You may call me by that name for now. However, I am sure there will be others I will be able to extract from you in the future._

 

What happened directly after that was difficult for Riku to piece together. As best he could understand from the vague images he could decipher he was somewhere still within the castle. What he could see was too quick, seconds of moving pictures with no context from one to the other. There were too many shapes and colors to give meaning to them all. There was Maleficent's face, contorted and gasping for air as her body heaved forward impaled on... something. Fire and thorns gave way to a mesmerizing display of bleeding colors in the shape of a Heartless emblem. Darkness, and then the colors changed to Sora's face far below him, eyes wide with a mix of terror and sadness.

There was an overwhelming feeling of anger from within him directed at Sora, anger that Riku knew couldn't be his own. For in all the times that he challenged his friend, all the times he teased and harassed and made it his ultimate goal in life to prove himself better than the other in every way possible, he had never wanted Sora dead. Even in jealousy, he never wanted Sora to suffer as brutally as this burning anger would have him believe. The anger he felt then was rooted from somewhere different inside him, from someone else entirely. Sora had become the target of all of Ansem's frustration at the lack of achieving some sort of personal mission and the Keyblade Bearer had to be dealt with swiftly. Whatever warning Riku could have given was silenced in watching the transformation that happened in his best friend's eyes.

"Forget it." Sora spat, knocking away Riku's newly formed Keyblade. "There's no way you're taking Kairi's heart!"

The sensation of power that ripped through him was enough to take Riku's breath away. Everything he could feel was amplified to an extent that he could have sworn his body knew what he was doing before his mind could even comprehend. It could have been the disconnect from being possessed, it could have been something else entirely, but there was no denying the almost intimate way he felt the gathering of muscles along his back and legs mere instances before he actually moved. His arms swung effortlessly to block attacks he couldn't have ever foreseen. Dashing was more like flying and he seamlessly leapt high into the air like gravity meant nothing at all. Everything he did was a display of effortless grace and deadly intent, all while he kept a sadistically twisted smirk on his face.

No matter the circumstances of how he had gained this power, Riku secretly would have been perfectly content to keep it.

_Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. There are still plenty of other tasks left to do after we're done disposing of this nuisance._

The fight faded before him and the scene changed again. Riku only needed a second to see a great swarm of Heartless descending on Hollow Bastion. He heard the call from their Master, offering this world for them to overtake just like what had been done back on Destiny Islands. They answered in droves, pouring out of dark channels from every available wall, floor and ceiling. They rose like a wave, hungry and expecting to be sated.

And they would be. If Riku didn’t stop them.

He had to relay a warning, something, anything to get his friends out and away from immediate danger. However rising back to the surface of his mind to gain control of his body was nearly impossible. Ansem's hold over him was nearly flawless, save for one small crack in his concentration. In the all-consuming darkness wrapped around his mind, Riku could almost see the break as a sliver of orange against the backdrop, an orange that steadily became brighter and warmer. It was a chance, he knew, one that he probably wouldn't get again, but worth it to try and convince Sora that the body of his once-friend was no longer his own.

"No! You won't... use me for this!" He gasped as a ghost of himself appeared onto the physical realm, not having time to wonder why there was only Kairi standing surprised in front of him. "You've got to run! The Heartless are coming!"

Ansem was quick to force him back into unconsciousness, but not before Riku could feel his rage burning deep into his mind.

_Insolent boy!_ Ansem seethed. _You have interfered with my plans here for the final time. I do hope you enjoyed seeing the face of your friend. It will be the last that you do._

The mental pain was overwhelming for a second as Riku slipped back into a dream-like state. The pain, however much he knew it was only in his mind, felt incredibly real. He writhed under the assault of Ansem’s fury, trying to fend the Dark Master off with his remaining will. His last thought before it all faded into nothing was to wonder if his message was able to help at all.

Elsewhere, one small Heartless wandered through the halls of Hollow Bastion, searching for the friend who was no longer there.

~❣~

As Riku slowly rose back to consciousness, the first thing he could identify was that every fiber of his body ached. He couldn't have told for sure, but it certainly seemed as if he had run a marathon, been hit by a Behemoth, then forced to lift at least ten people simultaneously. His body protested at the slightest movement, even breathing deeply hurt all the way down to his lungs. He groaned and rolled over onto his back, not bothering to pay any mind as to where he was or how he had come to be there. He panted for desperate air, blinking often to be sure he actually was awake and not just in another dream. He started as a sudden realization occurred to him.

Ansem had let him go.

It couldn't be. Riku had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ansem had fully intended to never let his host body to regain his mind once he had been put under the last time. Which meant something, or someone, had changed that. Feebly, Riku forced his protesting muscles to move as he made himself shakily stand. For the sake of his own freedom he had to know if Ansem was still nearby, not that there would be much Riku could do if there was an ambush in the works. This time though, he would make sure not to go down without giving every ounce of his strength to protest. This he knew for damn sure.

"Riku!" A faint voice called out from the darkness, a voice that he knew better than the beating of his own heart.

Sora was calling him from somewhere far beyond. Riku stumbled forward blindly, too eager at the prospect of his freedom to notice how close he was to tumbling off the edge into some endless abyss. After all, Sora was waiting for him. His foot slipped and he yelped in surprise as he instinctively sprawled, a lucky instinct that allowed for him to cling onto a plant root as his lower body hung dangerously off a precipice. He grunted and steadied arms which threatened to give out on him at any moment, now keenly aware of how close he had been to an untimely end. There was no way he could die here, not with the promise of going home being so close. With a deep breath he painfully pulled himself back over the edge and strained his eyes as much as he could to find a glimpse of where his friend was calling from. Surprisingly, the dark for all it was didn't make up the entirety of this realm. There were strange shapes and even hints of muted colors to help him find his way through otherwise hazardous terrain. It was a relief in a way, not having to walk around completely blind.

"Riku! Where are you?!"

He did rush forward then, careful this time to watch his footing, spurred by the panic in Sora's voice.

The Door he arrived at wasn't just massive, it was beyond comprehension. There was no way it could have been made by some sort of accident however there was nothing that Riku knew from his world or any other that could utilize it. It’s stark white color, accented with interwoven ornate patterns and two identical stained glass windows toward the top made it uniquely contrast to the rest of his surroundings. It shone brightly in the prevailing dark, but somehow that light it gave didn’t feel very warm or responsive. It was imposing. It was gaudy and undoubtedly out of place.

"Riku!" Sora's face peered anxiously from the other side of the door. The gap in between the doors was small, barely enough to for his friend to see through and it was closing slowly. "Riku are you there?!"

"I'm here!" 

Riku pressed himself close to the gap so that Sora could see him, bracing himself on either side. He could see the relief wash over his friend's face as if everything that had happened over the last few months was forgotten entirely. It was a comfort to know that Sora was quick to forgive, even after all the horrible things Riku had said at the Rising Falls. It was to be expected in some sense. Sora could never hold grudges for very long.

"I knew you were in there somewhere. I just knew!" Sora's eyes gleamed brightly right before his features darkened. "But I can't stop the Door from closing. It's- It's supposed to be closed to the Realm of Darkness. I'm sorry..."

"Do what you have to do." Riku nodded back, trying to demonstrate an air of confidence. "Don't worry about me. I'll just find another way out. Do me a favor ok?"

"Favor?"

"Take care of her." Riku didn't feel the need to specify who her was. "I’ll meet up with you as soon as I can."

Sora forced a smile. "I'll make sure to be there when you do. Just don't take too long ok?"

"You're always the slow one!" Riku couldn't help but tease. It was natural around Sora to be so comfortable with him. "I'll be waiting for years before-"

The Door was almost closed. Sora had started into one of his signature pouts when the expression melted into a face of pure horror. Directly behind Riku a pair of golden eyes materialized out of the blackness, followed by the still very real form of Ansem. White gloved hands gave a mocking motion over his lips for Sora to be silent.

"RIKU!" Sora screamed out, inadvertently reaching towards Riku at the risk of having the Door close on his arm.

Riku whirled around, a fraction of a second too late to block an incoming blow from the Guardian Heartless which sent him crashing off away from the Door. Everything in Riku's vision spun around as he collided to the floor, breath knocked out of him. His head spun in an endless tirade of thoughts as he tried to regain control of his senses, trying to comprehend what in the worlds had just happened. He recognized Sora’s screams even as the last sliver of light from the realm beyond narrowed into nothing. With a deafening rumble, the Door shut, trapping Riku with the newly reformed Ansem in an alien world.

"Don't bother getting up. You won't be going anywhere without my say so from now on." Ansem sneered down at him and placed a foot squarely on Riku's outstretched wrist. The older man crouched down to grab the boy by the hair, yanking Riku’s head up towards himself and inhaling deeply as the strands of it brushed against his face.

"What are you doing?!" Riku thrashed as best he could and winced as he not only felt but heard his hair being pulled from his scalp. The foot on his wrist only pressed down harder in response to his question. He gasped in pain as bones ground together, his hand spasming to try and alleviate the feeling. Without any breath left in him, he was forced to stay still in hopes that Ansem wouldn’t be any more inclined to crush his sword-hand underfoot.

"Done?" Ansem asked but received no direct answer other than Riku’s heavy breathing. "You will do as I tell you, and right now we're going to a place I've kept in hiding for such an... occasion as this."

Riku snarled up at him.

"I'm not going with you anywhere. I'm getting the hell out of here.” He fought to keep the stinging tears of agony from falling and exposing weakness. “Agreeing to be your little puppet was the biggest mistake I've ever made and I'm not making it again. Go and find someone else to possess. It won’t be me anymore!"

The grip in his hair tightened and Riku nearly screamed.

"Lively, but you're in no position to argue. Especially not here with the Dark Realm. This may as well as be my kingdom here boy, before you begin to think you have any real power. Everything you had, was because of me. Everything you are, will also be because of me."

"Like hell." Riku spat. "I'm not some plaything for you to try to control. Obviously you're not in my head anymore so there's no reason I can't just send you back to where you belong and leave this place." _To go home._ He almost said aloud.

Ansem's face twisted in a wide smile, full of malicious intent. He bent even closer to Riku's ear, so close that lips were nearly touching skin. Riku could feel Ansem’s breath running down his neck and his skin prickled, already hyper aware at every sensation. Every bit of him was telling him to run and run away fast, while his body was frozen in place, disconnected. His skin crawled uncontrollably all the way down his spine. He had to remember that he still needed to breathe.

"Do it then." Ansem whispered so softly that it took him a second to understand what had been said.

With a jolt of energy Riku gathered his legs underneath him and launched himself directly at Ansem hoping to throw him off. It was true that it never took much of a challenge to spur Riku into action, but this time that was something about the way the older man had said those words that made him almost feel nauseous. Even as he landed one good hit squarely in the side of Ansem's ribs with his left arm, he still couldn't get over the feeling that he needed to get himself as far away from this menace as possible. Both tumbled back and much to his relief, Riku's wrist was freed in the process. The pain of it stung, but the adrenaline was kicking in too much to focus on it.

Ansem was stunned but by no means wounded. Dismayed, Riku realized that there was nothing for him to summon as far as a weapon was concerned without Ansem’s direct power to draw from. No Keyblade would have him. SoulEater was responsive only to dark energies that he no longer had control over. Fighting options were limited to next to nothing and thus no way in his favor when facing a Master of Darkness and the Guardian Heartless had chosen that moment to reveal itself.

So the options were to fight and definitely lose, or run and possibly live to see another day.

Not like that was a hard choice.

Riku turned and raced past from where he had woken up from, leaving nothing but a trail of dust in his wake. There was no way for him to know where exactly he was going but anywhere had to be better than being privy to Ansem and his... presence. As best as he could gather, he was going deeper into this Realm of Darkness, as Ansem had called it, but he seriously doubted if this place ever ended at all. It was entirely possible that this realm was eternal in it's vast corridors and fathomless pits. He did his best to not dwell on thought that the one and only door out of this place had just closed on him forever.

Didn't change the fact that whatever future Riku had there, Ansem was definitely not going to be a part of it. He swerved a hard right to avoid colliding into a wall and stopped completely as he found himself blocked by another chasm. The pause in his escape was enough to let the already mounting paranoia within him set. Riku surveyed the area, wondering if there was any way to continue forward. As he looked he could have sworn that he could hear the footsteps of Ansem coming up closer behind him and the low growling of the Guardian who was undoubtedly not far either. In reality there wasn’t even a remote chance of hearing Ansem’s footsteps. A man as vain as Ansem would always hover a few feet above the ground. His shoes ever needed to get dirty.

Riku doubled back quickly, surprised to find that the exact path he had just used was blocked off as well. With no options left but one, he sprinted up a long slope of jagged obstructions from the ground farther ahead. The platforms were all neatly arranged, one to the other, so that they led upwards and out of sight. Riku couldn’t help the sinking feeling about what waited for him at the top.

A gust of wind hit him in the face as he ascended onto the final platform. He took all of a second to be awed at the view of a moonlit beach spread out before him. The sound of waves washed over his senses and he could feel the grit of sand beneath his feet, allowing him to process that this was all too real even as he wondered if this could still be yet another dream. Even under the light of a pale moon, it was eerily similar to Destiny Islands. Riku’s mind stalled, in too much surprise and confusion to decide on where he needed to go next. A moment beforehand he had been running through a maze of caverns and now here he was, standing on a beach in a place that was geographically impossible according to all the worlds he had ever known.

"Beautiful isn't it?"

Riku mentally cursed himself for being distracted for far too long. Ansem hovered just behind him, arms crossed over his chest but looking out to survey the scene. Before Riku could make any move, two clawed hands gripped him around the ankles dragging him down to the ground. It was no longer sand in which he was standing, but in a pool of Darkness from where the Guardian was now holding him in place. Crying out, he lost his balance and fell to his knees in it, his legs no longer able to move.

"In this realm, everything is as it wants to be." Ansem continued, not bothering to look down at the distressed boy. "There is no laws to govern what can or cannot be. As such, there are some things here that you'd never witness the likes of anywhere else. A shame that it won't be the same where we're going."

The Guardian was dragging him further down into the murky darkness and Riku struggled even as it enveloped his chest and arms. Ansem floated down to the ground in front of him then, placing a gentle hand on the side of his neck. His fingers traced small patterns along his skin and there was no longer any way Riku could misinterpret the gesture. Disgust welled inside of him, rising like a bile that left a bitter taste on the back of his tongue.

"Don't touch me!" Riku yanked his head back, sounding far too panicked the he had intended. The Guardian wrenched his arms back behind him to secure his wrists together with raw dark energies as Riku struggled for all he was worth. The struggle, though admirable, was a useless attempt. The boy heaved, the top half of him that was able to move straining to get free. He couldn’t be caught here. Not like this. Not with this man. 

Ansem's face showed no hint of pleasure at Riku's predicament except for the slightly brighter gleam emanating from his eyes.

"Bring him." He ordered the Guardian with a wave of his hand.

There was very little Riku could do as the Guardian lifted him up and out of the pit, slinging his body directly in front of it and ushering the boy forward. He growled and tried to wrench himself away before the Guardian gained a strong grip over his pinned wrists. After that, there was nothing else for Riku to do but walk in whatever direction they wanted. Ansem turned to open a portal out of the realm, something Riku could never have done even if he had wandered for a thousand years. He thrashed in the arms of the Guardian to try and catch the creature off guard to no avail. Nothing could phase it, and it seemed that movement only encouraged it to tighten its hold.

He was carried through the portal just after Ansem and out onto the expansive space of a world he'd never seen before. A dry gust of air immediately blasted him in the face and he had to close quickly his eyes to keep from getting dirt in them. When he could stand to open them again he gasped softly to himself, his heart clawing it's way up into his throat.

"Welcome," Ansem gestured out towards the endless fields of Keyblades. "to the Keyblade Graveyard."

It was enough to take Riku's breath away. The sight of so many Keyblades was mind blowing and there were just as many questions that went along with them. Never in all his life had he thought there had once been so many others like himself. No, not like him, he bitterly thought. Keyblades weren't particularly fond of him anymore after all. Not since his best friend had taken it away. Even after seeing him it was hard not to be angry, but he couldn't have said who he was angrier at. Sora for being stronger, or himself for being weaker.

In comparison to the beach where he had just been, this place was almost the opposite in every way. Everything was hushed except for the occasional whisper of winds over the mostly cracked and brittle ground. There wasn't a single other living thing in sight and Riku felt a pang of desperation at the thought of there being no way off this forsaken world. Whatever life this world had once had was now long gone to the point that even the light of the sun above them felt dulled. Ansem wasted no time in leading the trio through the mazes of scattered Keyblades littered around them and towards a series of cliffs off into the distance.

"What... what is this place?" Riku couldn't help himself but ask. His voice trembled and he swallowed hard to keep himself breathing slowly.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ansem raised a brow as he looked back to address him. "There was a war. A Keyblade War, to be exact."

"Why?" Was the only question Riku could think of.

Ansem shrugged and refrained from giving an answer, turning away from them once more. Riku fought the urge to bite his tongue in frustration at the older man's pointed way of ignoring him. He tried to calm his already erratic thoughts and focus on what was most important which wasn’t an easy feat. Things were quickly going from very bad to worse with every step and there was no alternative to ease his growing anxiety.

Escape was the obvious first, but difficult in both the immediate sense and that he was now trapped on a world with no known way to get off of it. It wasn't as if Gummi ships just appeared out of nowhere on a whim and magical portals were even less likely to miraculously spawn. Any chance of being rescued was slim to none, especially now that he was in a place far beyond what Sora and him had ever known. The grim reality was simple. Sora would never come looking for him here.

So he was left to his own devices, hoping that maybe if Ansem made a mistake once he could possibly make one again. Doubtful, but still exploitable if Riku was ready when the opportunity arose.

The party continued their pace through the Keyblades until they thinned out to just a few scattered about haphazardly here and there. Riku kept his gaze low but made sure to have a heightened awareness of his surroundings which helped him to maintain some sense of control over the fear that threatened to overtake him. There wasn’t a movement that Ansem made without his knowledge, likewise with the Heartless that was a constant threat just behind. Occasionally, just to see if it was still paying attention, he would jerk at his bonds as if to test them. The Guardian appeared to have no qualms about him trying, either oblivious to him entirely or just so certain that he would never get himself free.

The fields of Keyblades turned into jagged cliffs both below and beside them as they rounded a few turns, something that Ansem seemed to have expected. He chose a relatively easy path, one that looked beaten and worn both by time and the elements. This was a way he had memorized long ago in another lifetime, something that he had never lost despite all the... changes he had been through. It might well be considered ancient history by some people, he almost laughed to himself at the thought. Which was fortunate enough for him. What little was known about this place made it all the more ideal as a hiding spot.

Gradually they made their way up to the top of one of the cliffs which flattened out into a long plateau without so much as a blade of grass to it. At the end of the plain, overlooking a good portion of the fields far below stood a castle that appeared just as desolate as the rest of the world. High walls and spires that may have once been things of beauty and ingenuity now looked to be mere husks of their former glory. Riku gazed at it, his gut wrenching at the thought that this wasn't a castle full of life anymore but that the castle itself was a corpse.

To Ansem, this place was more a home than any other. He smiled secretly to himself, welcoming the sight of the faded stone walls and clouded windows. The Graveyard Castle was not so ornate as Hollow Bastion, but was still impressive in its own right. It was more angular, Ansem noted, better fortified. The walls were obviously thicker. The windows and doors were narrowed for better protection for those inside. This castle had been built to last longer than any of them, and would without fail. But most importantly, it had been built to keep anything unwanted out.

"This is... your castle." Riku heaved as he entered into what looked to be a courtyard before the main gates. The journey here had taken more of a toll on him than he had anticipated. Whatever adrenaline that had kept him going was finally beginning to wear off. Every ache and pain he had beforehand seemed only to have multiplied from his attempted escape and his body was near its breaking point.

"You are correct in that observation." Ansem nodded in reply. "This has been my home for quite some time now. Even longer than you've been alive."

"You built this place?" Riku asked, eyes wandering the walls that loomed over him.

Ansem let out a harsh laugh. "Foolish boy, no! This place was once a fortress like Hollow Bastion, a refuge for Keyblade Wielder's from all across the worlds. I suppose that it is conveniently located near the Realm of Darkness so that those of the Light could keep an eye on it, but that's neither here nor there. In the end it didn't matter if they could see the impending Darkness or not, it still destroyed them anyway."

"In the Keyblade War." Riku finished for him.

"Those that managed to survive were scattered far away from this place," Ansem continued. "and everything that was once here was almost completely forgotten. Almost. I managed to find a manuscript from one of the refugees when I was much younger than I am now. I used the clues written within it to locate this place once again. You should feel honored. You are one of the few to enter these walls after the War."

"I'm not feeling very honored." Riku scowled. "This place should be left alone to rot along with whatever else you've got going on here."

"Trust me boy, what happens here will change the destinies of all the worlds."

The Heartless shoved Riku forward roughly as Ansem swung open the large doors into the castle with apparent ease. Riku caught his footing, barely, as he stepped onto the threshold of a grand entrance hall, one that dwarfed Hollow Bastion's by a considerable amount. Even in desolation the interior was nothing short of majestic. The decor had been left all but untouched, even if some of it had decayed down to splinters, but most of it remained in good condition. Most impressive however were the two giant statues poised at opposite ends of the room, forever locked in battle. There was no mistaking the Keyblades both figures held, nor the parallel displays of Darkness and Light.

"Ironic no?" Ansem tilted his head as he nodded towards the stone Keyblade Masters. "There was once a time that they believed that Darkness and Light should be in balance with each other, no one to overcome the other. They built this as a testament to that ideal, that this castle could harbor both in unison. They were foolish, and in so doing created an eternal monument foretelling their own demise."

Riku turned away slowly, a heavy feeling of despair sinking down into his chest. The trio walked their way down one of the side halls, silent save for the sounds of their footsteps.

"What do you need me here for?" Riku dared to ask, eyes falling on a painting of Keyblade novice. She smiled in her portrait, holding her delicate Keyblade over a kneeling Heartless. "You already have your body back. It's not like you're going to need me to do your work for you anymore."

"I disagree." Ansem led the way up several flights of stairs and through another long corridor. He stopped in front of a door, similar to all the others. He chose his words carefully. "I have found that the more... allies I can acquire, the greater my chances of success become."

He opened the door to a small bedroom inside. It was nothing too elaborate, something that Riku was sure was intended for some low-level trainee or castle staff, but comfortable all the same. The air held a heavy smell to it but that was to be expected of something left unattended for who knows how long. He surveyed the dust covered bed tucked into a corner, along with a desk, a wardrobe and several books that he doubted could withstand even being picked up again.

"This will be yours." Ansem waited at the door, watching as the boy entered slowly. With a flick of his hand the bonds on Riku's wrists disintegrated into nothing, finally giving him back control of his arms. Riku rubbed them more on instinct rather than discomfort.

"This will be mine until when?" Riku snapped back. "When I no longer have a purpose for you?"

"Essentially." Ansem's face remained cold, hiding his growing irritation. "Your cooperation greatly defines just how well you're treated here. I would suggest you take that into account before you try any ill-conceived escapes."

"As if I'm just going to do everything you tell me to." Riku glared with all the tenacity he could, already feeling the itch to try and hit something. If he had something that actually could have hurt Ansem, he very well might have at least tried.

"That is your decision. But I will warn you that the consequences will equal the severity of your actions."

"Spare me your bullshit Ansem. What is it that you need me here for? I'm not here to just serve you tea and cakes whenever you decide it's time for your afternoon snack. I think you have enough Heartless around here to be your maids and then some."

Ansem's eyes narrowed. "I believed I enjoyed your company much more when you were comatose."

"Just answer the question!"

It was faster than Riku could have expected. Ansem's hands were at the base of his neck, fistfuls of his hair locking his head painfully back and up. The two locked eyes with each other, Riku all but swinging wildly in an attempt to break himself away. With each movement, Ansem's grip only tightened harder so that all Riku could feel was that of pain. His breath caught somewhere in between his chest and his throat while the rest of his body went cold.

"You will very soon learn that the only orders that are to be given around here will be exclusively from myself. Anything else will be considered an act of rebellion and they will be punished accordingly." Ansem's golden eyes gleamed unnaturally bright as he hissed. "Do I make myself unmistakably clear?"

"Get your hand out of my hair!" Riku cried out as the hands twisted cruelly, causing him to buckle before the older, stronger man. He weakly grasped at Ansem’s wrists before him as he tried to wrestle himself free.

"Give me one more command." Ansem sneered, mouth curling into a nasty snarl. "Do that, and I promise you that uncontrollable tongue of yours will be forever parted from your mouth."

It was physically sickening how weak Riku felt. No matter how much he wanted to put on a brave facade, he couldn't stop the trembling of his limbs or how shaky his breathing had become. All he could convince himself to do was to just be still. Be still and take it, he tried to reason with himself, like a common prisoner before this got more out of control. Ansem had the patience of an immortal and was making it painfully clear that unless Riku complied, only worse things were going to happen. Riku needed a plan before attempting anything else.

The hands in his hair eventually let go and Riku felt the sting of his nerves along that went along his damaged pride. It took all of his self control to stop himself from shaking. He hated feeling like this, more than anything else in the world. It was pathetic. It was weak. It was not at all how Riku ever wanted to feel. He kept his eyes glued to the floor, not wanting Ansem to see just how humiliated he was.

"Good boy." Ansem smirked after a long moment of silence, tilting his head up slightly higher. "You will remain in here while I finish some of the final preparations for your stay."

That wasn’t a suggestion.

Riku didn't respond.

Satisfied even with silence, Ansem left the room and shut the door behind him, leaving Riku alone to tend to his own thoughts. As soon as the door closed, the boy sank down to the floor with his back to the wall, too tired to even crawl up into the bed. His body was exhausted, drained of whatever precious little energy he had when he had woken up. He tried to convince himself that his fatigue was the reason he wasn't able to fight more. It wasn't that Ansem was better or stronger than him, it was simply that Riku had been a victim of unfortunate complications.

He closed his eyes, hoping against hope that when he opened them again all of this would be some version of yet another dream. As he drifted off to sleep, he almost registered the jarring sound of a deep rumble encompassing what had to have been the entire castle. It lasted for all of a few seconds at most, descending down the walls and finally fading out into the floor with a final tremor. Riku shivered briefly and let himself finally rest as everything on that wretched world went silent.

~❣~

_The dream was always the same._

_Sora was trying to tell him something important as they sat on the beach. Something that Riku was too distracted to try and listen to._

_“Riku-!” Sora pawed at his friend’s arm desperately. “Riku this is serious!”_

_“Sora I have something to tell you.” Riku looked off back toward the waves, trying to formulate a thought that kept flitting away like paper caught in a breeze. “It’s about… It’s about…”_

_They both spoke at the same time._

_“I don’t want you to leave!” Sora said as he failed to hide the brimming tears._

_“Castle. There’s a-” Riku faced his friend, looking into his sky colored eyes. Whatever it was that he was going to say was quickly lost at the sight of his friend crying. “H-hey. What’s wrong?”_

_“It’s not important.” Sora sniffled and rubbed his face to rid himself of the offensive tears. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me ok?”_

_He made an attempt to perk himself up a bit with a bitter smile. It didn’t fool Riku for an instant._

_“What… were you trying to say about me?” Riku pulled Sora in a close embrace. The sight of his friend in such a state bothered him immensely, even if said friend was being too stubborn to say what the problem actually was. Sora reacted stiffly, clinging onto Riku’s shirt as if it was the last vestige of his friend he would ever have. The sobs were stifled, barely._

_“Don’t worry about it.” Sora’s tears trailed onto his best friend’s face as he planted a warm kiss on Riku’s forehead. “Just promise me that you’ll come back here with me someday.”_

_“I promise.” Riku nodded, never doubting if he would be able to keep it._

~❣~


	3. Infused

The Heartless that woke Riku up sometime later was less than kind about it. He awoke with a start, sharp claws digging into his forearm as it hissed and spat at him mere inches away from his face. On reflex, he instantaneously kicked it across the room and reached for the nearest object to use as a weapon. The damage to his arm was minimal at best, light scratches that would heal up in a day or two, but it was the principle of being woken by this… creature that irked him. 

A squeal resounded through the room as the Heartless flew through the air, landing in a mess of window curtains and dust. It recovered somewhat quickly, its bright yellow eyes narrowing in anger or disgust at Riku who was holding a bedside table as both a shield and a weapon. It clicked out a strange sound at the boy, cocking its head from side to side in a form of communication that was entirely lost to him. The boy held his ground for a few moments and waited to see if any other Heartless would be joining it. It wasn’t like Heartless were known to travel alone.

“Ansem sent you, didn’t he?” Riku asked tentatively, lowering his guard just the slightest bit after a swarm of its Heartless friends failed to appear.

The little Shadow Heartless clicked and made something of a nodding motion with its head, claws dragging on the floor. It didn’t move from its spot below the window sill, all too aware of what a threat Riku, even without his usual weapons, was. It’s garbled speech sounded similar to an angry cat, if that angry cat was arguing with an even angrier viper. It slinked forward cautiously, never taking its eyes off the table and the one holding it, as it began to try and open the door, large claws making the task a fairly difficult one. It would have been comical, if the whole situation hadn’t been as tense. With the door finally opened, it turned to face him again, its antenna waving in a direction that led further into the castle.

Riku thought about making a break for it then. Maybe he could have gotten a head start on Ansem if he darted out of the castle without so much as looking back, but he knew Ansem wasn’t stupid. He would have failsafes in place for such an action, otherwise why would he have sent the Heartless in at all? If there was a possibility of Riku’s escape, he would have surely had Riku chained in some dark dungeon, cold and starving just to prove that he, Master of Darkness, was in the position of power. It was discouraging, but Riku knew he would need to locate the failsafes first and hopefully, _hopefully_ , find a way around them. For now, it was just play along and gather all the information he could.

The Shadow led him towards the west end of the building, as far as Riku could gather. The light from the sun here was strange. For some reason it shown with the same colors no matter what time of day as if it were perpetually dusk. Whatever sorcery it was that caused such a phenomena, it only served to make the already bleak outlook that Riku had for his new residence even bleaker.

They both stopped at their apparent destination, a set of large double doors which Riku could only assume was once the entrance to the Grand Master’s chambers or something of that sort. It was definitely _not_ like what Riku was currently accommodating, though that fit Ansem’s nature perfectly. Far be it from the man to settle for anything less that the most grandiose of rooms.

The Heartless, its task completed, squawked and shuffled away, careful to leave a safe distance between the two of them. Riku never had any real love for the Heartless in general, but it was difficult to say that he harbored any ill will towards that particular one. It was strange to say that he may have actually sympathized with it.

With nothing else to do he knocked on the door firmly, setting his jaw in anticipation of meeting his once former possessor.

“Enter.” The deep voice within resonated so strongly the door may as well have not been closed.

“You sent one of your minions to fetch me?” Riku gritted his teeth together as he entered. He took stock of the room he walked into, finding Ansem sitting behind a large ornate desk at the far end.

“Mm, I was hoping you would have ventured here on your own.” Ansem appeared busy with a handful of papers in front of him that could have very well all been for show. The only real attention he gave to his guest was to finish a concise little note in the bottom corner of one parchment before brushing it off to the side with the rest. He folded his hands in front of him. “I assume you rested well?”

Riku glowered at Ansem’s pretending that he actually cared about anyone else’s well being.

“Fine.” Riku answered curtly, making sure to keep a considerable distance away from the desk and it’s occupant. Sleeping on the floor hadn’t been one of his brighter ideas, but exhaustion had a way of making the most uncomfortable of places feel bearable.

“Then I gather that you should be in a ready enough state for the training I have brought you here for.” Ansem rose without any real urgency from his seat at the desk. He was tall for someone his stature, which only accentuated the level of scrutiny he exhibited on the one who stood before him. Riku genuinely hated how easily Ansem could make someone, even a strong someone, feel useless and weak just by being in his presence. Regardless, he refused to be cowed by some Heartless, even if he happened to be the physical embodiment of the word ‘egotistical’.

“What training?” Riku asked, backing away a few paces. There was no such thing as being too wary in front of this man, especially after his decisively invasive actions the day before. “Do I have to be the one to remind you that I've been stripped of my powers?”

“Powers that _I_ gave you.” Ansem corrected. “Something that could very easily be given back.”

“Don't bother. I don't want it and I don't need it. I can find my own strength.” Riku’s back hit the door. He was already finished with where this conversation was going. His mind drifted to some sort of escape route, preferably one that didn’t require him having to turn his back.

“Come now.” Ansem extended his hand. “We both know that's a lie.”

Riku felt it a split second before it actually materialized. It was natural, how easily he gripped SoulEater’s handle. The weight of it in his hand confirmed that it was in fact a perfect weapon for him, a light and equally durable combination of some sort of metallic substance. Before, it hadn’t mattered about where or how he had obtained it, only that he could use and use it well. He had been a deadly, nearly unstoppable force with SoulEater as his chosen blade, despite Sora having the obvious Keyblade advantage. But now, standing in front of its very creator, Riku battled with what was the right decision to make.

It was a test, that much was clear, giving him back some measure of power like this. Ansem wouldn’t risk so much just for Riku to be able to end all of his hard work here and now. It was clear that Ansem relished in both the giving of some measure of control and the ability to take it away. It was too much a gamble to think that Riku had any real chance at defeating his foe, at least for the moment, but there didn’t seem to be any other viable action.

He lifted SoulEater above his shoulder, its end pointed directly at Ansem’s chest. His body settled into his normal aggressive stance as his other arm extended out, palm open in front of him. If he was going to issue a challenge to Ansem, he might as well look confident about it.

“You know that it’s going to change nothing.” Ansem looked a bit amused at the display, not bothering to respond with a weapon of his own. “Why fight what is already inevitable?”

“Says the one who thinks he’s going to somehow bring all the worlds into Darkness.” Riku shot back, tightening his grip on the handle of his weapon.

“You think what I do is all in vain? Who was it again that manipulated you into opening the door that destroyed your entire world? And to think I did that with hardly any deception at all.”

Riku shook his head, doubt clouding his eyes. 

“I didn’t know!” He fumbled with the excuse. “How could I…”

“You didn’t know what?” Ansem questioned back, giving Riku the same expression as he would a petulant child. “Didn’t know that your own selfishness would obliterate everything around you? Or that your friend would somehow manage to take your only true talent away from you? I believe I warned you that night about the consequences of your actions yet you plunged wholeheartedly into the Darkness, if I recall correctly.”

Riku bit his tongue, hard.

“Shut up…” He warned softly, letting the swelling anger out in small breaths. Ansem didn’t care to listen.

“I am curious,” The man continued, with a gleam of mischievousness in his eyes. “to think of what would have happened had your friend had taken you up on your offer on the island. Maybe it would be he standing here-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

Riku’s whole body shook with anger. He charged at Ansem, spurred by words that dared to insinuate that Sora, _his best friend_ , would ever have stooped so low as to become Ansem’s mere puppet. He launched himself up and over the desk, roaring as he brought SoulEater down with all the force his body could muster onto what should have been Ansem’s smug face. In the last instant the older man’s whole form fell away, revealing that what he had been targeting had in fact been nothing more than an illusion. The blade tasted nothing but empty air.

Ansem’s laughter reverberated from behind and throughout the room as Riku rolled to avoid an otherwise heavy collision with the floor. He spun around, vaulting off a wall to hurl himself back into the fight, this time more aware of the fact that he may or may not be falling for yet another ruse. He slashed quickly, half expecting to feel no resistance from the taunting man. The blade connected with Ansem’s chest but was stopped before it could do any true amount of damage.

“Your reactions are faster when you’re angry.” Ansem mused, prying the tip of the blade back with just the palm of his hand. “We’ll be sure to utilize that in your future training.”

Riku was quick to pull SoulEater back, stabbing forward in such a way that Ansem would be forced to dodge or risk having his hand run through.

“You don’t know half of what I can do!” Riku cried out and feigned his attack before dropping low to swing at Ansem’s legs. The Dark Master lept back, landing softly just a few paces away without so much as a look of surprise.

“Please boy, I have no illusions of what you’re capable of. I was you for some time, remember?” With a quick wave of his hand, Ansem produced an orb of dark energy which he displayed proudly in front of him. He held his eyes firmly on Riku to ensure that the message was clear. He wasn’t playing around anymore. 

It was a relief when SoulEater held true as Riku managed to block the first orb that raced towards him at a terrifying speed. The impact was enough to push him back, his shoes digging into the soft carpet as he tried to find some kind of footing. He dropped to his knees, his left arm bracing from falling forward on his face. He positioned himself as a sprinter would, waited for the inevitable next attack to fire and then, when the time was just right, he sprang.

It was always a strength of his, being able to quickly dart in almost any direction he chose without losing any of his balance, and he planned to use it here to his full advantage. The room was decently large, but without endless space to manipulate his powers, Ansem would have to make sure every attack he sent could keep up with Riku’s formidable speed in close quarters. It was the best idea Riku could come up, knowing full well that the longer the fight drug out the less favorable were his chances.

Ansem smirked, letting loose a volley of dark orbs that honed in on the running boy. A few exploded over various furniture as they traveled, so close to their target that a half of second delay on Riku’s part would have been a certain hit. He didn’t care about the trail of Darkness they left nor the glowing portals that they created in their wake. In that moment, there was only one thought that pervaded his mind. He dodged his way through the never-ending assault of Darkness, his focus entirely on his target.

He rushed at Ansem from behind, blade held low just at the hip. The remaining orbs altered course and converged on him from all directions. Regardless of the looming danger he stayed to his path. There could only be one shot at this. If he could defeat Ansem here, or at least wound the older man enough, he might be able to make his escape.

Riku swung a wide arch in front of him, catching two orbs as well as the back of Ansem’s coat in the swing.

Ansem howled in pain as a newly formed gash in his flesh was exposed through the torn fabric. The wound appear decently deep, but it was hard to know for certain as almost entirely black blood welled in its wake. The man unintentionally stumbled, reeling from an attack that he hadn’t been able to foresee.

It would have been perfect. Riku honestly believed that. His hopes swelled at the thought that going home was but one more successful attack away. That, and the promise of who was there waiting for him.

It all could have been. Could have, but for a single miscalculation.

Riku cried out as a solitary orb slammed into his shoulder, a force so strong that it reverberated throughout his body and threw him forcibly into the wall. He landed back first, head cracking onto unforgiving stone. The impact was tremendous, enough to make him see stars and knock the air right out of his lungs. He stuck there, groaning and hanging in a residue pool of Darkness left behind by an already pre-detonate orb. Ansem turned with a sneer, making an effort of composing himself after being caught so disgracefully off guard.

“I should commend you for that.” He huffed. “I hadn’t expected that you would still have some surprises left in you.”

Riku didn’t have the breath nor the collective frame of mind to say anything back. He coughed, sputtering to try and regain his senses. The pain that radiated from his back felt like hot waves that traveled all the way down into his limbs. He was sure it felt like little electric knives cutting their way through each individual nerve. It was a mind-numbing sensation, so much that SoulEater dropped from his slack hand, clattering on the floor.

Ansem strode over to him and placed a hand onto Riku’s heaving chest. He lingered there, eyes narrow, taking in everything of the one who had been taken his prisoner. There was something about this boy from the islands that had very much caught his attention from the first time they met. Riku had been much younger then, a child, but already had begun to show so much promise over his companions. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what it might have been that enthralled Ansem so intently. Maybe it was Riku’s unrestrained nature or perhaps his unapologetic pride. It could have been how readily Riku had not only accepted the Darkness, but had cast aside fear, friend and body in so doing.

At the core of it though, there was something about that hair and those eyes.

“I’m glad to see you have so much energy to you.” Ansem’s hand pressed harder on Riku’s chest, causing him to sink into the Darkness. “It will make what happens to you next that much more of a success.”

Riku slipped through the magical portal, tumbling into a heap as he appeared on the other side with Ansem who was never far behind.

The older man gestured outwards with his hand. “You’ve been asking me as to the reason I’ve brought you here. I believe this is where you will find your answers.”

Through spots in his eyes that were just beginning to clear, Riku could make out that the room itself was bright, much brighter than anything else he had seen since before Hollow Bastion. It looked to be some sort of laboratory or research facility, and almost everything within it was a stark, almost sickening spotless white. The color was uniform from the walls, the floor, even the strange array of equipment that Riku couldn’t even begin to fathom what was their each unique purpose. All of it, except for the large glass vat that held a great amount of swirling, churning Darkness contained in the very center of the room. 

Ansem gathered Riku up by the wrists, dragging him across the floor and towards a slab located against a wall, one of half a dozen others all arranged neatly in a row. It didn’t take too much effort for him to move the stunned and wounded boy who hissed, recoiling from the pain. Riku twisted and pulled as much as he could manage, which pathetically was barely enough to even slow Ansem’s pace. His body shook from barely receding pain and he desperately tried to call out to SoulEater, wanting something… _anything_ to somehow help him break free of this ever-growing nightmare. A whimper bubbled at the top of his throat, his frustration mounting from his stubbornly unresponsive weapon.

There had to be some way to get out of this.

“No!” He gasped, eyes darting wildly back and forth from the slab, to the vat, then to the skin of Ansem’s already healing wound. His mind was piecing together all sorts of horrid ideas of what this room could be used for, and none of them were anything Riku wanted to be apart of.

“I’m afraid yes.” Ansem said without a touch of sympathy in his voice. “This is something that was already put into motion a long time ago.”

With a grunt, he lifted the boy up and onto the slab, not bothering to show any concern with how gentle he was about it. The movement was enough to on bring another onslaught of shooting pain that went all the way into Riku’s fingertips then settled into the small of his back. Riku writhed on the smooth surface of the slab, unconscious of Ansem’s hands deftly strapping him down, face towards the ceiling.

“Don’t… Don’t-” Riku didn’t even know what he was trying to stop. He pressed against the restraints that held tight, one over his chest and the rest holding down his arms and legs. They bit harshly into the skin on his arms, chafing the more violently he struggled.

“Calm. You’ll need whatever strength you have.” Ansem took on something on a gentle tone, double checking to make certain that his captive was secured properly. There was no mistaking the eyes that betrayed his growing anticipation.

“What- What are you doing?” Riku allowed the panic that had threatened to overtake him to finally run rampant. There was no stopping the tremors in his body nor the heightened beating of his heart that he was sure was going to burst out of his chest. He swallowed hard, trying to force the knot in his stomach down in between shallow, ragged breaths.

“This will all be necessary, I assure you.” Ansem was perceptive enough to note how the normally green eyes of his prisoner were now nearly black with terror. It was... interesting to say the least. “I promise that this is for your protection.”

Riku paused, at a loss of anything to say. He balled his hands, closing his eyes and wished with all the strength he had that when he opened them again he’d somehow be greeted with blue eyes and a wide smile. It was an impossible wish, but one he couldn’t stop himself from making even if he wanted to.

“...My friends will come for me.” Riku said without any real conviction while still keeping his eyes closed. It was a weak threat, he knew it before it even passed his lips, but he had to say something. Just lying there, terrified though he was, would not be the way he would face this monster. He would resist until there was nothing left of him to fight anymore and he would never, _never_ let Ansem control his body again.

A small chuckle escaped from the one who stood above him, entirely unimpressed at Riku’s statement.

“There’s only a very select few in all the worlds that have knowledge of this place’s existence and I know for a fact that your friends are not of them.” He moved around to the other side of the slab, gathering together a substantial amount of equipment on top of a rolling table. Riku opened his eyes to see several trays of vials and a few not so nice looking needles with syringes.

“You’re going to make me a Heartless?” Riku felt the anxiety building in his chest.

“Quite the opposite actually.” Ansem punctured a vial of darkness with the needle, drawing a full amount of it out into the syringe. “We both know that you’ve been resisting whatever darkness still lies within you for quite some time now. Those powers you keep speaking of, the ones we used at Hollow Bastion, were only my extensions of what was already in your heart. You’re here now because you didn’t give in. Which is… ironic really.”

Riku bit the inside of his lip.

“...And if I did give up?”

“You could have very well ended up a Heartless like the rest of the people who do the same. I should have noticed the difference in you sooner. You accepted Darkness, but didn’t succumb to it. That…” Ansem looked absolutely predatory as he gazed, fixated down at his bound prey. “That is something I’ve never seen before.”

Riku stared at the syringe held delicately in between Ansem’s gloved fingers.

“You’re going to force me to intake more Darkness.” He breathed with a settling realization.

“The Darkness trapped within your heart is more than your body can withstand. It is why you were so weak when you awakened in the Dark Realm.” Ansem hovered in close, readying the point of the needle just at the edge Riku’s arm. Again, the strange scent of the man overtook Riku’s senses. It was almost uncannily familiar, and yet so revolting. “This will help you to build a tolerance of it so that one day you may use that which will be your greatest source of strength.”

Ansem moved back a bit, hand steady as he stabbed the needle into flesh, injecting the contents of the syringe in one fluid motion.

Riku instantaneously felt the veins in his body run cold. 

He screamed, jerking and spasming against his bonds as was his body’s natural response to the feeling of Darkness being diluted into his blood. It felt like ice, but colder still than that. The intensity was so much that it seemed to burn as it traveled slowly, so agonizingly slowly, up his arm and around towards his chest. It could be seen as it was moved along, little rivers of black veins that wormed their way just underneath the skin. His screams echoed all throughout the room, increasing in volume the closer the Darkness inched to his heart.

“Fight it.” Ansem commanded in a loud voice to ensure that the boy heard him. “You can become great, but only if you fight.”

Time slipped away as Riku spent all of his energies trying to contain the Darkness that sought to consume him. He grunted, trying to expel the icey substance from his body in whatever way he could. His particular affinity to Darkness made it easy to identify as it traveled, and if he could somehow learn to control it on his own, he could be rid of its effects. The pain, though by far some of the worst he had ever felt, would pale in comparison to what would happen if he lost his heart. His body could suffer endless torments, but the Darkness could only do so much without a heart.

Sora had said something about such a thing. Riku tried to summon the memory, but the words evaded him. The more he tried to remember the less likely it seemed that anything at Hollow Bastion had even happened at all. It seemed unlikely that he would fight his best friend over something so trivial as a Keyblade. They had been friends for so long after all. Surely something else had happened to drive them apart.

Riku found the thoughts of Sora distracting and as much as he would have given to make those thought into reality, there was another more imminent threat at hand.

It was a slow process, overcoming the Darkness, taxing both his mind and his physical self. Minutes seemed to tick by like hours and hours went by like lifetimes. Riku spent his time on the slab interchanging between writhing, sweating, and heavily shivering from the cold. Every time it seemed as if he had managed to bring all of the Darkness under his control, yet another part of it would rise to move again and the process would begin all over. He fought and continued to fight for whatever advantage he could achieve.

The convulsions gradually became less strong as the Darkness faded and Riku allowed himself to sink into a weary sense of relief. Ansem hadn’t been patient enough to wait out the entire session, which suited Riku just as well. He didn’t need someone watching him through this. The older man had taken his leave of the lab after spending just a few minutes observing the boy’s spasms, confident enough that the experiment was going to prove a success. A few Soldier Heartless remained in his stead, under strict orders to remove Riku from the slab as soon as the injected Darkness was fully under control.

They unstrapped Riku only after he went almost completely still, the only indication he was still alive was the occasional full-body shiver. Ansem had been correct in his judgement, Riku thought with disdain. He would have certainly hurt himself had he not been restrained. It was repulsive how Ansem had known to take those precautions beforehand, and Riku refused to think about how he had come by the knowledge. All he was willing to dwell on was the thought of how much he wanted to curl up somewhere safe and just rest.

The Soldiers, four in total, lifted him up and off the slab, carrying him on their shoulders out of the laboratory. For as much as Riku was very much alive, he may have well been entirely dead weight as they went along. It was humiliating, being carried, but the prospect of walking on his own seemed to border on insanity. Even without the exertion, every bit of him felt as if he would collapse if he even attempted to take a single step on his own. The energy it had taken to just keep himself _human_ had been more than Riku had anticipated, despite Ansem’s encouragement to save his will power. He may as well have fought a thousand Heartless simultaneously for how weak he had become.

Riku was carried back out and into the castle, hardly conscious enough to notice the eerily empty interior. The aching cold that had possessed him a short while before had arisen again in full force, thankfully without the Darkness along with it. It was a gnawing, bitter cold that wormed its way down into his bones, an absence of a Darkness that he never wanted. He shivered and shook so hard that there were a few times that the Heartless had to pause in their procession to ensure that he didn’t fall. Riku had always been a child of hot summers and bright suns, most definitely _not_ accustom to the freezing internal parts of himself. He groaned, silently wishing that the cold would just disappear.

All he wanted to do was just be warm and asleep.

The warmth of the fireplace in Ansem’s room was a welcome change, but one that he hadn’t been expecting. The Soldier’s didn’t bother to knock when they entered the chambers, obviously invited in much earlier by their master. Ansem was seated in a large chair facing the crackling fire, a heavy book in hand. He closed it delicately as he looked up to see his prisoner being brought in, making sure to set it aside for future study.

“Set him here.” Ansem waved towards the plush rug on the floor that separated his seat from the hearth. The Heartless obeyed without any retort, depositing Riku into the embrace of the fur of some long-dead creature. The boy was initially startled by the soft, gentle feel of the fur on his skin, but not enough to stop him from gravitating towards the warmth of a fire not a few paces away. Being awake was proving to be his next greatest challenge as his body slowly returned to normal temperatures.

Ansem caught him by the shoulder.

“Not too close now. The cold you are feeling now isn’t of a natural source and therefore natural elements won’t be enough to dispel it.”

Riku’s body inadvertently trembled.

“Don’t… touch…” He ground out hoarsely, having spent a good portion of his voice in the lab.

The Heartless left the room nearly as silently as they had entered, careful to close the door behind them. Riku’s eyes snapped open as he became acutely aware of how vulnerable he had become. Vulnerable, and alone.

“What did I say about giving orders?” Ansem replied without any touch of real anger. If anything he seemed amused as the grip on the boy’s shoulder tightened. He was close now, so close that Riku could identify the difference between the heat from the fire and the body that continued to close in on him.

“Leave me…” Riku’s teeth chattered. “...alone.”

Ansem lifted one of Riku’s wrists to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to flesh.

“Bruised.” He murmured, inspecting the damage in the same fashion he would inspect any of his instruments. “Can’t have that, can we?”

Riku recoiled, his mind knowing that this was somehow… somehow all just another play from Ansem to assert his dominance. He pulled his arm away, baring his teeth in a snarl and tried to create some space between them. He crawled, barely, but the underlying message was clear. He wanted none of this.

Ansem’s eyes narrowed into a glare, displeasure showing with the sign of resistance.

“Don’t make this harder on yourself.” He warned softly, which was by far more intimidating than anything else.

“G-go…” Riku fought to keep his voice under control. “fuck yourself.”

It was feral, how quickly Ansem was on top of him in an instant, pinning him down to the floor just as Riku’s shaking fingers reached out for an iron poker next to the fireplace. Strong hands slammed Riku’s wrists down into the rug as Ansem straddled him from above, the grin on his face widening. Riku bucked to try and knock the one on top of him off but the combination of exhaustion and the indomitable strength that the older man possessed was simply too much to overcome. At the end of it all, Ansem had won.

“Riku, when will you ever learn that struggling against me is futile? Cooperate, and I think you’ll find that you might actually enjoy it.” Ansem whispered the boy’s name, lowering himself down on top of him while being careful to still hold the pair of wrists pinned in place. The full-body contact was enough to make Riku’s head swim. Lips brushed against his own, and with a jolt, Riku felt as a small measure of energy was transferred by into him. It wasn’t enough to rid him on the pain, but definitely to make him awake and aware of what was happening. 

“You’re s-sick.” Riku’s glare hardened.

Ansem gave the slightest of shrugs. “I’ve been called worse.”

Dark bindings tethered Riku’s wrists to one of the legs of the chair, which was surprisingly heavy enough to stay anchored despite how hard he pulled. He growled in anger, refusing to believe he had lost so much of his strength in the lab. The Darkness wasn’t his own that bound him, something that Ansem undoubtedly knew that Riku couldn’t manipulate. It was an undeniable fact that there wasn’t anything else he could do with his arms pinned above his head.

Ansem, now with his hands unoccupied to do with as he wished, let them roam down along Riku’s sides, pausing a breath before they slid up and underneath his shirt. The touch caused a small hiss of surprise to slip from the boy, something Ansem found quite inciting. He lifted the fabric up his torso to stop just below the neckline. 

To say that Riku was a battle-ready child was the greatest understatement. The boy was absolutely built to be a fighter, a fact that was evident in every facet of his physique. In another time, he would have been groomed under certain masters to be the greatest of all the Heroes of Light. It wasn’t a far stretch of the imagination to say that battles would have been won or lost depending on this boy’s strength alone. Yet now, Ansem couldn’t help but appreciate the deceptively smooth but toned flesh displayed underneath him.

All of this was his, he relished, splaying his fingers onto Riku’s stomach. All of this, and more.

“Such beauty… Perfection really.” He mused more to himself than to his captive audience. “And to think you would have forfeited all of this had you returned back to your boring little island.”

Riku tensed as Ansem’s mouth descended ferociously onto his neck, teeth latching on the tender juncture of nerves. His back inherently arched, his breathing stopped entirely as Ansem bit down hard enough to almost draw blood that was then replaced by a caressing tongue. The stimulation kept going for a few tediously long minutes, only ceasing when Ansem moved back to inspect the mark that throbbed in time with his heartbeats. The mark was a keen reminder of who was in control, and why.

The reaction of his body was mortifying. He hadn’t wanted this, but yet there he was, breathless, with an ache in his flesh that was becoming more and more pronounced. Everything about this should have disgusted Riku, he knew this. It wasn’t Ansem or the situation that made his body flush with need, but the simplistic necessity of _something_ that felt better than the hell he had been through in the last two days. It was a logical conclusion for his flesh to crave pleasure. After all, if cold desired warmth, then pain desired comfort.

And Ansem was talented in the giving of both.

Pleasure had its price though, Riku squirmed wildly as Ansem undid belts and buttons to glide his pants down and off his legs. The boy’s entire body shook. He was cold, scared, and entirely exposed. There was no denying Ansem’s already prominent arousal even through the remaining clothing, pressed against Riku’s inner thigh. Gold eyes worked their over every inch of him, missing nothing even as they rested on the flesh between his legs.

Ansem’s hand traced lightly up Riku’s leg, fingertips barely brushing along hips before traveling down to run the full length of his cock. The feeling was electric, causing every thought running through Riku’s mind to come to a sudden, grinding hault. There was no noise that escaped from his parted lips, frozen as they were.

“There’s more to come than just this.” Ansem promised, his whole hand now wrapped entirely around Riku’s quickly hardening shaft, moving in a slow concise rhythm. Riku had never expected anything to feel so… intense. His hips moved in time with the strokes of their own accord, wanting more of what would give him inevitable release. He pulled once again at his wrists, even knowing full well it wouldn’t make a shred of difference.

He almost didn’t realize when he let out a single breathy moan.

Ansem was diligent as he stroked and teased, drawing out every movement and shudder he could. It was only when Riku was close to climax that he removed his hand, leaving the boy beneath him empty and needy. Riku’s body trembled in the absence, eyes watching in terror as Ansem undid his own pants. It was impossible not to look as Ansem revealed his own member from behind the dark fabric, nor tear his eyes away from the sight of the man stroking himself into an even more enlarged state. The fear that should have been present from the very beginning had at last begun to manifest, but only because the thought of _that_ being anywhere near him was horrifying.

He thrashed, kicking where he could and only succeeded in bringing Ansem back closer to hold him down.

“Easy, my pet.” Ansem hushed him like a child, tangling the fingers of his free hand into Riku’s hair. “Tonight will not be about breaking you.”

The words held too deep a meaning for Riku to simply accept them. He would have demanded answers to the questions that arose with that statement, if not for the sudden touch of fingers about to enter him. His whole body jumped and he inadvertently yelped out of surprise, having no idea how Ansem had managed to move his hand there without him noticing.

“Stop-!” Riku jerked, hands clenched tightly. The man on top of him waited for muscles to unwind after the initial shock, pushing two of those fingers inside as soon as the opportunity presented itself. “Sto- ...uhgn!”

Everything he felt then was alien and _wrong_. The fingers that wormed inside him were intrusive in a way he’d never experienced before, contrasted by the near blinding pleasure they created with a few strokes against a particularly sensitive spot that he never knew he had. The sensations were strong enough to cause his softening cock to spring back to life again, throbbing and leaking a few drops of clear liquid which dripped off the head. Ansem moved his hand from out of Riku’s hair to touch the beads of precum with the pad of his thumb, all while rubbing his other fingers against the spot that turned Riku’s world into a hazy dream.

“Why stop?” Ansem asked huskily. “When you obviously enjoy this so much?”

The fingers inside him began to stretch him wider and Riku fought the growing tears in the corners of his eyes. The ultimate betrayal, he thought, was that of his body desiring what the rest of him did not. He squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to believe that somehow he could retreat far enough back into his mind that he wouldn’t have to acknowledge any of this. He tried to think of building a raft on the beach and smell of sand.

“Sora could never see you like this.” Ansem’s words snapped him right back into reality.

“How…” Riku’s shock at the declaration was enough to allow his tears to finally fall.

“I was in your head, if you remember.” Ansem dragged his fingers out of the boy with one final stretch. “While I may not have seen every single one of your memories or desires, that particular one was rather… prominent.”

Riku’s heart went numb.

He hadn’t thought… He hadn’t even _guessed_ that Ansem knew…

“He could never fulfill what you truly desire.” Ansem bent forward and positioned himself, the tip of his member pressed against Riku’s entrance. “He could never give to you what it is that will make you mine.”

The actual penetration was slow, which granted little relief for Riku to be able to adjust. Ansem took some account of Riku’s comfort as he worked himself in, sheathing himself into the warmth and tightness of the boy. He felt the small spasms of protesting muscles and breathed heavily, focusing his concentration on not giving in to his more primal urges too quickly. He grabbed Riku’s hips forcefully to gain a better angle so that he could go deeper and stopped only when he was fully seated, a grin of pure satisfaction painted on his face.

Riku gave out a prolonged groan, his body somewhere on the cusp of the most agonizing pain and the most acute pleasure he’d ever felt. His body had near frozen from the intimacy, all save for the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He gasped loudly as Ansem began to thrust, slowly at first that gradually and relentlessly gathering more speed.

“You’re mine.” Ansem growled as he went back to stroking Riku’s painfully unattended cock. He ground into the boy with less discretion.

Stimulated both inside and out, Riku found that he had little to no endurance to resist the onslaught of release. He came hard enough to make his back arch off the floor, locking Ansem as fully inside himself as was possible which only served to make the sensations even stronger. He moaned as it spattered across his stomach between them, his eyes fluttered back and closed as he sank into waves of elation. Ansem was not long in his own release after. He managed a few more hard, slightly shaky thrusts before he groaned deeply, buried deep inside the boy.

Ansem took a moment before pulling himself out, either taking his time to revel in what had just occurred, or gloating. Either way, it didn’t matter. Riku refused to look at him as he got up to dress himself. There were no more tears to be shed. Everything inside him had gone entirely numb.

“I assume you’ll want to sleep here tonight?” Ansem asked casually, as if it made no difference to him either way. He tucked himself back into his pants and straightened his coat around the collar. “The fire might still serve you some good.”

Riku shook from something other than the cold.

Sleep was the greatest blessing he could have asked for, and it was granted without any interruption. Ansem left him alone in his chambers next to the fireplace that still had a few hours worth of flame left. The popping and occasional snap was somewhat soothing as the boy drifted off, still curled on the floor. He tried not to think as his mind slipped away. Everything that had happened, everything that could happen was something that he just couldn’t bring himself to deal with. Not then, not there. Above all else though, Riku took some solace in knowing that whatever dreams he had while sleeping could never equate to the nightmare of being awake.

~❣~

_He was on the Paopu island, standing with back against the wind._

_“Riku…” Sora reached out as if to stop him from falling. The sky had inexplicably turned black, it was never this dark even at the dead of night. Riku would know. He had snuck out to this very spot many times before._

_“Now we can go to the outside world.” He smiled._

_“You- you’re not… Riku.” Sora stopped just before he could grab Riku’s hand. He looked puzzled, frightened even. It didn’t make any sense for Sora to be so scared._

_“We can’t let fear stop us.” Riku tried to hide his growing sense of pride. He’d done it. He’d given his friend the one thing he had asked for nearly a year beforehand. “Come on Sora. This is what we talked about doing. This… this is what you wanted, right?”_

_Sora shook his head slowly, backing away._

_“You’re not Riku!” A Keyblade materialized in Sora’s hand, glittering with light. He held it out towards Riku’s chest. “Whoever you are, give him back his heart!”_

_“Sora? Sora… it’s me.” Riku stammered, desperately trying to reason with him. He couldn’t figure out why Sora would act this way. For all the years they’d known each other, all the time they spent together, Riku had always been himself._

_“Give him back!” Sora charged like he hadn’t heard him speak._

_The winds around them released a deafening howl as the storm unleashed its full fury._

_Riku could do nothing to stop his friend as Sora dived forward, swinging the Keyblade directly into his side. It connected with a sickening crunch that ended with him off the side of the island, thankfully into the shallows down below. Riku landed on his hands and knees in the jet black water, raising himself up by his arms and coughing up flecks of blood._

_Through the pain, he couldn’t help but notice the phenomenon. It was strange, the water was calm, even with the turbulent storm all around him that seemed to be on the verge of tearing the whole island apart. He looked down into the smooth reflection on the surface, and saw himself staring back._

_He saw himself staring back with storm blue eyes._

~❣~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got to some of the smut :3
> 
> Also, I made some minor changes to the previous chapter. Nothing really noteworthy. Just a rather liberal use of the word "maintain" in one particular paragraph that just... it just bothered me ok? Also, you may have noticed that the number of chapters has increased by one. Dumbass me forgot to count in the epilogue. So that's a thing.
> 
> Would you like to know when the next chapter is going to be posted in advance dear reader? Fear not! I have a tumblr account, so that you can be updated about the updates for the updates! Please feel free to follow/ask me anything/browse through. Please note that the blog is 18+.
> 
> [http://direwriting.tumblr.com](http://direwriting.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left the kudos! It makes my day every time I see a new one! <3


	4. Hope Arrives

“Tell me how the boy fares.”

Ansem cast a sidelong glance at his guest, fully understanding the implication of such a direct request. It was a threat of sorts, coming from the imposing figure in a long black coat who so casually tilted his head. In any other context, this sort of order would have certainly never have been tolerated, but this time it was different. This time there was sense of familiarity that served as a shield for the man in his office, one which was utilized well. His guest didn’t seem the least bit concerned by the possibility of angering his host. If anything, he almost seemed to relish in it.

“I already gave you a detailed report of his current status.” Ansem replied, curling his lip in disdain. “Unless you couldn’t have been bothered to read it.”

“You know me better than that.” His guest replied back smugly.

“Then why ask?”

“Without actually seeing the subject myself, it’s hard to deduce the exact measure of his… progress.” His guest remained focused and still in front of Ansem’s desk with his arms folded over his chest.

“You wish to observe him?” Ansem asked, rising from his chair and narrowing his eyes with contempt. He was careful that whatever feelings he held towards the opposing man he kept veiled as well as he could, though the growing irritation was proving to be more difficult to hide.

“Would you allow that?” The guest lowered his voice to a near growl. “Or has this boy got his hooks in you too deeply already?”

Ansem laughed at the remark.

“Hooks you say? Are you concerned that I haven’t put forth enough effort towards our goals? You think my resolve so weak that a mere pet could derail everything I have spent lifetimes trying to achieve?”

“Pets come with some degree of…” The guest struggled to recall the correct word. “Fondness.”

“Pets also are quick to learn of their place. If they know what is best for them.”

“Hn. But that takes some of the fun out of it. Doesn’t it though?” Xemnas pulled his hood back from his face. His Other seemed unsurprised by the revelation, but then that was to be expected. No one ever came to the Graveyard Castle without Ansem’s say. The Nobody fixed his gaze on his Other across the desk, almost challenging him to refute the statement. Ansem all but rolled his eyes.

“You have no room to talk about such things.” He countered. “From what I’ve heard, your pet all but falls into line with your every whim like a groveling mongrel.”

“What of it?”

“Just that I believe we have our differences, my Other. You’ve forgotten the thrill of making something submit in every way before you. The thrill of the hunt, so they say. Your pet has become too tame for my personal liking, but yet you say I'm the one who's owned.”

Characteristically, Ansem didn’t flinch when the red blade shot out at him. Xemnas instantaneously teleported himself next to the other, halting his blade just at skin of Ansem’s throat. A thin trail of black blood crept out from where it dug into the side of his neck, snaking its way down his collarbone and onto his chest. He didn’t retaliate when Xemnas moved in close, the blade twisting and dragging deeper as it moved up his flesh to rest underneath his jaw.

There was a degree of amusement that came from being able to entice such a reaction from his Other. Which was why it couldn’t be helped as a sly smile crept across Ansem’s lips.

“You’d kill your own heart just to prove a point?”

Xemnas glared ferociously back into his opposing pair of golden eyes.

“My pet doesn't own me.” He hissed softly, pulling the blade back into the sleeve of his coat.

“Of course he doesn’t.” Ansem faked his conviction and wiped off the extra blood on his skin with his glove, grimacing as he noticed the stain that formed from doing so. He had kept the gloves nearly immaculate for so long, it was a shame to finally have to waste them.

For a few long seconds both stood to just acknowledge each other silently, as if waiting for what the other one would say. The atmosphere in the room was charged with an intensity that refused to dissipate, both too stubborn to resolve the issue. Neither seemed willing to show any weakness by speaking first.

Xemnas remained pointedly close to his Other, glaring the Heartless down, one hand caught in mid air between them. There was an unintentional shift in his stance and he swayed forward, unknowingly gravitating towards the heart that beat in Ansem’s chest. His hand shook, reaching towards its location, compelled by a force he couldn’t ignore. Ansem cocked an eyebrow and Xemnas hovered, a flicker of interest dancing along his face.

“May I…” The Nobody breathed.

“Have you forgotten it so quickly?”

“I just want a taste of remembrance.” Xemnas’ eyes were dilated with desire, his hand finally resting, palm flat, over Ansem’s heart. The Nobody could easily feel the pulses of each heartbeat even through the thick fabric of his Other’s coat. It resonated so loudly within him, he could hear it almost as clearly as if it were his own. “The… impulse to be whole again is sometimes greater than I had anticipated. It’s a hunger that compels every action I make, and to have it here… so... close…”

Ansem peeled his Other’s hand off of him and pulled it to his lips, smiling as he pressed a kiss to Xemnas’ knuckles.

“Who am I to deny myself?” He asked. “But you know that the sort of remembrance you want will only cause further pain for you. Give it but a little more time, my Other. We will soon be one as we were before.”

Xemnas growled and yanked his hand away.

“The boy.” He snapped, his face twisted into a dangerous snarl. Whatever spell that had lowered his defenses hadn't lasted long, and control was now in the forefront of his mind. The Heartless sighed heavily and strode over to a heavy wooden door at the far end of the study. He unlocked it quietly with an ornate silver key.

“There.” Ansem opened the door that led into his private chambers. Through the low lighting he pointed out the barely discernible figure who lay prone on the bed. A mess of silver hair that gleamed even in the almost complete darkness was the only detail Xemnas could make out for certain, though he could still hear the rhythmic sound of Riku’s breathing. The boy lay entirely oblivious to the waking world, peaceful, covered in a layer of thick blankets.

“He's asleep?” Xemnas asked, circling about the bed.

“The procedure takes a rather significant toll on the body along with the additional training to control his darkness. That, and the… rest of his activities he participates in, he has very little time to rest.” Ansem broke into a wide grin.

“I can understand then why he's so exhausted.” Xemnas strode forward, stopping to hover when he was at the bedside. He noticed the black fabric covering the boy's eyes and gently brushed his fingers against the blindfold. “Is this part of ‘training’ as well?”

“He was learning the finer details of how important touch can be without his sight.” His Other smirked. “Especially when he has no control of over where or when.”

The Nobody’s face gleamed with approval as the boy on the bed stirred. Xemnas’ gaze flickered back over to Ansem, questioning whether it would be wise for both of them to stay.

“He wakes.” He observed and removed his hand.

Riku breathed quickly, hands groggily coming up to pull the blindfold off. Xemnas replaced the hood over his face, casting the boy one last glance before following his Other back out of the room.

“I must be taking my leave anyway. There's an errand I need to attend to.” Ansem was careful to close the door behind him but didn’t lock it. Not this time.

“Is everything going according to plan then?” Xemnas asked once they were out of potential earshot.

“Minor details here and there, but all appears to be falling into place. Fear not about the pet my Other. Everything will be as it should.”

“I would hope so. I’m trusting you to uphold your end of the plan. Without you, everything inside this miserable castle falls apart.” Xemnas offered a slight mocking bow to the Heartless. “A pleasure as always then. Until next we meet.”

Ansem returned the gesture, somewhat bemused, before opening an dark portal.

“Until then.” He responded, disappearing into the black.

~❣~

He kept telling himself it was supposed to have been a vacation.

Hope arrived at Hollow Bastion with the rest of the refugees, just as confused and as dazed as the worst of them. He hung back tentatively inside the ship that had brought him to safety until a majority of the people had already made their way out. He watched them as they left in turns, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and anticipation.

Only when he was one of the last few did he follow, careful not to sway, down the ramp and out into the town. He, like the others, were greeted warmly by those that came to help them into their new residence. A slightly ironic gesture, considering the namesake of their home world. He kept his head low as he followed the small crowd, careful to not draw too much unwanted attention.

It couldn’t have been too much to ask, he mused, to want to be alone after everything that had happened. Most everyone else were silent as they went along, which was understandable. There was nothing to be said in the face of such incomprehensible tragedy. What had happened to his world was like nothing else. His home, his friends, his… family… All gone in the matter of few hours and nothing, absolutely nothing was left in the wake of the Darkness that had engulfed it.

One moment Hope and his mother had been in the middle of their vacation activities, and the next…

Hope only realized that he was digging his nails into his palms when the bite of pain indicated he had broken through skin. Wincing, he made an effort to will the stinging sensation away.

He was led into a large hall towards the center of the town with the rest, a place that he guessed had been once used as a local haven for who knew what kind of meetings. Not that it mattered anymore anyway. Where once had been a place of general town councils and festivities, there were a mass of cots and tables filling the entire area, set up in a hurry to accommodate the new arrivals.

Everyone filed in slowly, working out was what to be their own with very little to no communication. It was a simple matter of picking some bed and sitting on it to stake a claim. Ownership of anything seemed like foreign concept to someone who only had the clothes on his or her back to call their own.

Hope made his way to the closest cot he could find, wondering just how long it was going to be his to sleep in. With any luck, he may be able to find some kind hearted family to stay with instead of this place which offered little to no privacy. Anything would be better than public baths. Already he had overheard some people begin asking about what kind of work there was to get in Hollow Bastion so as they could start building their own places. Apparently some people had a lot easier of a time letting go than others.

He had almost just made his way to the edges of the room when his attention was grabbed by two local men who appeared to scrutinizing the entirety of the crowd. They had a different look to them than people from Hope’s home world, more rugged and used to the burden of having to struggle in the day to day life. Their faces were stoic as they conversed with each other just loud enough for Hope to catch the tail end of their conversation.

“Another group.” A local man with a long scar across his face noted to his blond companion. His friend nodded wordlessly, surveying the refugees with intense blue eyes. They stood off to the side of the entrance with their backs against the wall. “Not many that look recruit-worthy either.”

Cloud grunted.

“Too young or too old.” The corners of his mouth pulled down into a frown and he shook his head dismissively. “We don’t have the time to train these kids to fight before the Darkness strikes out again. Too people many stayed behind on their world.”

“Desperate times.” Leon said, pointing towards a pair of young adults who sat themselves at a table on the other end of the hall. “We don’t have the luxury of being selective of who we can have join the ranks.”

“Friends?” Cloud asked as he spotted them.

“Does it matter?” His companion shrugged. “The Queen will enlist them either way.”

The two disengaged from their spot with Leon sighing heavily on his way out. Neither were attentive enough to notice the light silver haired boy as they exited, nor the inner struggle ensuing within him over what he had just heard. They passed him by without even so much as a glance. For all it was, he may as well have just been a ghost.

Hope allowed his frustration at having been looked over so blatantly to infuriate him. It wasn’t as if he was ever educated in the ways of fighting, but then he never thought he would need to be back on his home world. There had been no way for him to know that his once peaceful existence would be forever marred by Darkness and death, or that the ability to defend oneself and those around him would become necessary. However, with his world gone and himself no longer there, Hope had come to realize the importance of learning to fight. He needed to learn to kill because that would be the only way he could… He could...

He took a deep breath and stalked out to find them, fists clenched as his sides.

“I can learn to fight.” He called out to the backs of the pair of warriors, jogging to catch up. He noticed then that both carried incredibly large swords on their backs with apparent ease. A feat that was no doubt the product of much practice and training. “I want to learn.”

Leon was the first to turn around.

“No offense kid, but you’d only get yourself hurt or worse.”

“You just said that it’s desperate times. Why can’t I learn?” Hope countered, swallowing back hot tears of rage.

“Desperate for fighters.” Cloud also turned to meet Hope’s gaze with a critical stare. “Not fodder.”

“You don’t know what I’d be and you’re not even giving me a chance. I need to learn so that I can avenge someone. I want to learn how to _kill_.” Hope heaved, near angry enough to be pulling his hair by the fistful. They weren’t listening to anything he had to say as if he was somehow the most unimportant thing to ever cross their path. There was no way he would stand for it. He needed to make them understand that this wasn’t their decision. His mind had been made up long before he even came to their world.

Both of the companions scowls deepened at his words, and they locked eyes to each other with a knowing look that said more than words. Leon shook his head dejectedly after the silent exchange, continuing on into the town without a second glance back.

“No.” Cloud said decisively, turning his back.

“But-” Hope pleaded.

“No.” The blond paused and exhaled slowly. “I… know the path you’re wanting to take right now. Give it up, before it consumes you. Trust me, only more pain will come where it leads. The price… the price is too great for any one person to bear.”

Hope couldn’t bring himself to say anything else. He watched as the two men disappeared around a corner, indignation and hatred rising like the heat of a volcano within him. The feeling sunk deep into his gut, burning and twisting until all he felt like he could do was yell and scream and tear things apart with his bare hands. He wanted to rampage through the entire town just to prove that he wasn’t useless as some had come to believe.

They were wrong. They were all wrong. Someday he would be strong enough to destroy the one thing that had taken what he had cherished most in life. He vowed this under his breath, stalking off in between the houses because there was no way he was going back to that damn refugee camp. He’d find his own way to become an unstoppable force that no one would dare insult to his face.

Nothing, and no one would stop him.

All the while, the dark mark on his left wrist, hidden underneath a yellow bandana, grew even more pronounced.

~❣~

The truth was that Riku had lost track of time.

From the moment when he had been first injected with Darkness, all the rest of the Graveyard Castle had become nothing but a blur. From what he could remember, the routine had always been the same. Some days it was more Darkness forced into his body. More cold and mind-numbing pain than led into hours upon hours of rigorous training with SoulEater. Ansem never sparred with him personally, but always had a multitude of Heartless at his disposal for Riku to fight. Some days it was many. Some days it was just one, like the Guardian, and it never stopped until Ansem was satisfied that the boy had learned whatever intended whatever he wanted to impart.

The lessons themselves were grueling, but not entirely unattainable. It took work to learn, or relearn, the powers that Riku’s body had used when Ansem had been in control of it. There were times that even just holding the blade properly was the hardest task there was, and then there were times he almost felt like everything came naturally. No matter what kind of day it was, Ansem was a harsh but effective teacher.

Then there were the nights…

The goings on at night didn’t happened near as often as what he had to do during the day, but it was still more than he ever wanted. It was usually when he was at his weakest, when the stress of everything he had to endure became almost too much, Ansem would be there. The man offered a distraction from everything else, but none from what Riku truly wanted to forget.

The boy shuddered as he cast the blindfold away, sitting up on the large bed and feeling nauseous at having even touched it. It took some time for his eyes to focus in the dim lighting, but it offered him a chance to take stock of what was, or wasn’t, in the room with him. As he sat collecting himself, he struggled to recall the words of the voices who had been there not very long beforehand. At least he thought he heard voices. The more he tried to remember, the more he began to think it had just been another part of his dreams.

He left Ansem’s room to go back to his own only after he had dressed, careful not to aggravate the bruises that ran up the right side of his arm. Most of them were severely dark and not of natural causes but there was no helping that. The Darkness, while most of it had been expelled, hadn’t entirely gone away. Some of it had taken root in his flesh, creating deep marks that only grew darker over time. They didn’t seem to be spreading as the days went by, but it was a small comfort.

Time was against him, Riku knew this. The window for his escape was dwindling and every day that passed was another missed opportunity for him to go home.

He walked back to his room begrudgingly, trying to think of where to begin searching for a way out of the castle. There never really had been any time for him to go examining about before then, with his days so consumed by Ansem’s demands, but now it appeared as if the Heartless was either gone or preoccupied with something more important. If Riku was lucky, it may have even been both. Either way, he felt more awake now than he had in some time and he planned on utilizing every precious second he had.

Riku rounded a corner and stopped suddenly in the middle of the castle hall, completely taken by surprise at the sight of another person standing to admire one of the many artworks.

He was a boy about his age, slighter of build and shorter in height, though admittedly not by much. He didn’t seemed dressed for some sort of combat, and there was no visible weapon within reach but that didn’t help to dissuade Riku’s distrust. There was just something about the way the boy looked that he simply didn’t like. It was impossible to explain, but there was something _off_ about him.

“...Who… are you?” Riku asked, backing away, wary of this being some sort of trap.

“I-” The other boy gave him a look with a similar expression of surprise. “I didn’t think there was anyone else here.”

“How did you get here?” Riku replied as he tried to quickly assess the situation. There was no doubt that Ansem had brought this boy here, but he couldn’t think of any possible motive as to _why_. 

Bringing someone else to the Graveyard Castle meant that this had to have been planned some time in advance, and who knew for how long. Ansem wouldn’t risk more people knowing about his hiding place for no reason, but this boy didn’t look to have any defining attributes that someone like Ansem would be interested in. He wasn’t strong. He didn't appear the be some sort of highly gifted mystical wizard. Riku refused to believe that Ansem would be petty enough to kidnap someone just because of the color of their hair. 

“I was brought here through a portal.” The other boy explained, swallowing hard to hide his fear. He reflexively wrung the edge of the bandana on his wrist. “It disappeared as soon as I walked through.”

“What’s on your arm?” Riku snapped. He could feel the pull of _something_ familiar from underneath the cloth, and if he was right it would shed a little more light on the situation.

“Nothing.” The boy instantly let go of it and tried to hide his guilty expression.

Riku stepped forward then and grabbed the boy by the arm, yanking it up to get a better view.

“Show me.” He said, untying the knot himself without much regard for if it ripped.

The boy whimpered for a second, trembling as the dark mark on his skin was exposed for Riku to see. Hope just stared back as other examined the bruise that almost perfectly matched the marks over Riku’s arm. While his was just one, the taller boy seemed to have many, and all evenly spaced apart.

“You have it too.” Hope swallowed hard, pulling his arm back once Riku finally let go.

“This is what will happen to you, if you stay here.” Riku sneered. “Take my word for it, and if you get the chance, leave as soon as you can. There’s nothing here that is worth what Ansem will put you through.”

“He said he could make me stronger.” Hope countered and let the bandana fall to the floor, not seeing the point in trying to hide it anymore.

“Wouldn’t be the first time he’s lied.”

“Has…” Hope pointed towards the bruises on Riku’s arm and then touched his own. “Has that made you stronger?”

Riku stopped, at a loss of how to truly answer the question. He wanted to lie, to tell him that all of this was for nothing. But it wasn’t. He couldn’t deny that the days that he exercised his new powers he could feel at least some difference. Granted, it was nowhere near what he felt in Hollow Bastion, but at times he got tastes of his lost power.

For all of that though, Riku would have never listened to Ansem’s promises if he had known what he would have given up in exchange. There was so much that he had lost since Ansem had originally taken over his body. Things that Riku would never have returned. If things had been different, if somehow he could have gone back and redone it all, he doubted if he ever would have left Destiny Islands in the first place.

“...Yes.” He answered truthfully and then bit his tongue.

“Then he didn’t lie!” Hope glared up at him. “I can get stronger. I _will_ get stronger.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for.” Riku hissed back at him. This boy had no idea what he had gone through, and remained still a prisoner to the one person he hated most. Every day he lived he had to struggle not to succumb to the force that wanted to overtake him from the inside out. Every day there was a part of him that just wanted to give up.

“I do know what I’m asking for! I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t! Ansem told me I could be strong, as strong as I ever wanted to be and because of you I believe him. This was my only chance to learn how to fight!” He shouted. His fists clenched together just as they had when those two _idiots_ in Hollow Bastion had told him no as well. No matter what, Hope determined that he wouldn’t be intimidated by some stranger he had just met for the second time that day. He was done with people telling him what he could or couldn’t do.

With ease Riku summoned forth SoulEater, leveling it with Hope’s face. Whatever feelings he held for someone else who had been taken captive like himself meant no difference in the face of this boy’s exceedingly irrational behavior. There was no way to tell him of the horrors that he had to go through in order to gain his abilities, but maybe there was a way to persuade him in another manner. If beating sense into the boy was what it took, Riku had no problems with doing just that.

Hope’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the blade and took a few steps back.

“You’re stupid...” Riku whispered, shaking his head.

“How am I the stupid one?” Hope lifted his head a bit higher and squared off his shoulders. “Because I wasn’t the one who has been training for years on end? Or is it because I’m the one who isn’t scared to do what I need to in order to get stronger?”

“You’ll lose _everything_.” Riku’s eyes narrowed, seething at how blatantly obvious it was that was he was saying was apparently not sinking in.

“I’ve already lost everything!!” Hope screeched out and extended out his hand in front of himself. “Ansem said I might have to use this sooner than I thought. Didn’t know he was talking about _you_.”

From a mass of swirling Darkness he summoned forth a blade of his own, one that the sight of made Riku’s breath catch in his throat. The blade Hope held appeared almost identical to SoulEater and it was in every way except for where there was the red coloring on SoulEater’s wing, Hope’s was instead a brilliant yellow. The other boy held the handle tightly with both hands, swinging it back to strike.

“Don’t do this.” Riku warned as he recovered from the surprise, taking a stance of his own to ready himself. He honestly didn't expect the other to listen, but the warning was given just the same. If this boy was so bound and determined to throw away his own life to accomplish some sort of vendetta, so be it. However if there was some way to prevent the furthering of Darkness from taking control of this boy’s body, Riku was willing to at least try and stop it.

Predictably Hope was the first one to charge with an attack, lifting his blade more like he was going to use it as a hatchet rather than as someone trained to use a sword as a weapon. Riku easily blocked the first wild swing, not returning one of his own despite how easily it would have been for him to send the other sprawling. He side stepped casually and let SoulEater drop low. He was reminded of his brawls back on the island, the ones which usually led to multiple kids downed in the sand around him.

“Fight me!” Hope yelled, aggravated by the fact that Riku refused to make a move of his own. He kept swinging just as blindly as before. “I can be just as strong as you are! I have to get stronger!”

“Why?” Riku hissed, parrying again and taking a step forward to close the distance between the two. With no room between them for him to hack his way through, Hope stopped.

“None of your damn business.” Hope breathed heavily, limbs shaking with a mixture of physical exertion and anger.

“Listen…” Riku tried to reason with him one last time. “I was like you not a long time ago. Whatever he promised you, I can tell you that it wasn’t for your benefit. It’s all for him. It’s… _always_ about him.”

“Shut up!” The other boy’s face twisted with mounting rage.

“He’s going to use you.” Riku continued, feeling more like he was talking to himself than anyone else. “He’s going to use you and once he’s done… he’ll throw you- _us_ out like we’re trash. Because that’s all he cares about, when it comes down to it. He just wants what he can take and the rest…”

The rest was all worthless anyway, Riku thought and wondered if Sora would say the same thing. His heart was the only thing Ansem hadn’t taken, and even then, it wasn’t exactly untainted. If Sora could have seen him right then, Riku was sure that his best friend would want nothing more to do with him. No one in their right mind would want to be friends with someone so deeply marred by Darkness.

“I said…” Hope pulled his trembling arms up in front of him, facing a palm towards Riku. He leveled his eyes with his opponent, voice soft and deadly. “Shut up.”

“No don’t-!” Was all Riku could cry out as a large blast of Darkness was released from Hope’s hand. The shot went wide, much to Riku’s fortune, largely on account of his own fast reflexes. He felt it as it whisked past his face by mere breaths, the disturbance enough for him to nearly fall, reeling over.

The wall to which it impacted was by far less lucky, a whole section of it evaporated in an instant. The Darkness tore through the stone as if it were paper, leaving nothing but debris and dust in its wake. The explosion that the shot made was deafening, so loud that Riku was sure anyone or anything still in the castle would have been deaf not to hear it. He ducked quickly to the side, covering his head to protect himself from anything that flew back from the impact. It would have been a lie to say that he didn’t feel awed at the presence of so much raw energy.

That blast could have hit him. _Should_ have hit him, and the one who released it showed no remorse or sign of wanting to give up.

Riku, with his balance regained, sped towards the other boy with the full understanding that his life may have very well depended on it. He grappled to gain control of Hope’s wrist, knocking the imitation SoulEater out of the way in the process. Hope struggled blindly as much as he could to free himself, outmatched against someone who spent years of his life tackling other kids just for the fun of it.

The two wrestled for a few breaths, Darkness curling at the edge of Hope’s fingertips.

“You fucking idiot!” Riku snatched Hope’s left wrist in his hand and twisted as hard as he dared without breaking bones. Hope shrieked and collapsed on the floor, holding onto his now limp hand. “You can’t just use Darkness like that and not think about what it’s going to do to you!”

“I just… I just…” Hope panted, tears trailing down the side his face. Whether it was from the pain or something else entirely, Riku couldn’t entirely tell. “You have everything… You could be… everything that I want to be.”

Riku stopped to stare down at the floor, ashamed.

“You don’t want to be me.” He stated.

“Don’t really have much of a choice anymore now do I?” Hope curled his legs in towards himself. He struggled to keep his breathing under control. A shudder ran through his whole body, ending only with him wrapping his arms around his knees.

A silence fell between the two.

“What’s your name?” Riku asked quietly, eyes still glued downward.

“Hope. Yours?”

“...Riku.” 

The silence lingered between them as Hope attempted to move his fingers on his left hand. He whimpered a bit from the pain, but found they responded even if they felt like there was fire running through them. Pain wasn’t something he was used to having to overcome, and it was incredibly difficult for him to do so. Still, he was fortunate that Riku hadn’t been vindictive enough to actually snap Hope’s hand apart, something he was sure the other boy could have done without any effort at all.

“H-How long have you been here?” He asked weakly, trying to distract himself.

“I don’t know.” Riku answered as best he could. “I think a few months maybe? I don’t know for sure.”

“He tricked you into being here?”

“Something like that.”

“What…” Hope let his hair fall over his face. “What has he made you do?”

Riku’s heart stopped for a beat.

“Nothing.” He choked on the words. “He’s made me do nothing.”

~❣~

Nights in Hollow Bastion always had a way of bringing out the worst.

“The kid never came back?” Leon asked as he helped search through the room full of refugees. At his side was a pretty young woman in a white and pink dress who took wide steps just to keep up with him. She didn’t seem to mind the inconvenience though, and her pace didn’t waver. She searched with him, desperately hoping that somehow maybe she had just miscounted earlier in the day.

Aerith shook her head, her bow bouncing with the motion. She wrung her hands together anxiously.

“No. He was counted with the others when he left the ship that arrived here, but never came back to the hall. No one knows where he is.”

“You’ve checked everywhere?”

“All the normal places.” She looked up at him with soft green eyes. “Unless he somehow made it down into the bailey.”

“It’s too dangerous to go down there alone.” Leon paced through the rows of refugees sleeping on cots, speaking softly. “No one in their right mind would do that, much less at night.”

“Leon, I- I felt something strange earlier.” Aerith confessed, pausing for a moment to place another blanket on top a shivering child, gentle and cautious enough not to wake them.

“What something?” Leon’s asked and his fingers reflexively went towards the hilt of his gunblade.

“Something… dark.” She tucked the edges of the soft blanket underneath the child’s neck. “Something lurking.”

“Sephiroth?”

“No, I don’t think he would make himself known so easily. This was something different. Something… I don’t know…”

“You think this has to do with that kid missing?” Leon steadied his voice from betraying his unease.

“Maybe?” Aerith shrugged, following Leon out of the hall and into the cool night beyond. She had noticed the empty cot off to the side on their way out, one that didn’t even look like the missing boy had even bothered to sit on. It made her heart ache to think that someone so young had to be one of the last survivors of a world that would likely be forgotten in time.

Her lips pursed together as she tried to express just what had so deeply bothered her earlier that day. It wasn’t like her to not be able to pinpoint at least some part of what caused such an ominous feeling, but everything she had gathered that day seemed mismatched. Incomplete.

“We’ll find him. It's not like he has any way to go off world.” Leon tried his best to comfort her. The two made their way back towards Merlin’s house, one of the few places where at least one person would still be awake at this hour. He kept his hand close to his blade and at the ready, in case there was need of it. After all, he hadn’t been around this long by sheer luck alone.

“Unless something took him.” Aerith whispered so softly, Leon almost didn't hear.

“What would take him?” He asked, his face grim.

“I don't know.” She replied. “I really don't know.”

“Aerith.” Leon faced her, not realizing how much of himself gave away how troubled he was as well. “Whatever is going on here, we will figure it out. If the kid ended up in some kind of trouble, well… We’ll do what we can. Everyone in there has been through some pretty traumatizing experiences. He may feel like he still isn't safe. He could be hiding because that's the only thing he feels is right.”

“Did he act that way around you and Cloud earlier?” Aerith pressed. She always had a unique way seeing through other people’s deceptions.

“He was…” Leon bit back the first words that he wanted to say. “Angry.”

“Nothing else?”

“Damn it, he was talking about needing to learn to fight for some reason. He didn't offer to tell us why.”

Aerith let her bangs fall in front of her eyes.

“You know why.”

It was a harsh truth, and one that had happened before. Too much sorrow and rage along with such a close encounter to Darkness usually meant only disaster for those left in its wake. Both of them had witnessed more than a few refugees be destroyed by Darkness even after having barely escaped it with their lives. It wasn't easy, getting rid of a newly formed Heartless, but it was something that had to be done. They couldn't allow Hollow Bastion become a breeding ground for more.

“Then he might very well be a Heartless now.” Leon sighed. “In which case, looking for him would be pointless.”

Aerith placed a hand on Leon’s arm, gently. Her touch was cool, but not unwelcome. A kind gesture to comfort a friend.

“It still wouldn't hurt to look.” She requested. “I don't want to think of someone having to spend a night out here cold and alone.”

“Cloud’s going to kick my ass for waking him up this late.” Leon consented. He found he could never say no to her, no matter how much of a waste of time he believed a search would be.

“Cloud won't do that if he knows why.” Aerith half smiled with a hint of old mischief in her eyes. “He’ll know this is important.”

Leon sniffed.

“Guess I’ll be fine with sleeping on a couch for the next few days.”

~❣~

Ansem hadn’t anticipated it being so late by the time he returned to the Graveyard Castle, but in all it had been a remarkably successful day.

He felt the presence before he even opened the door to his study, something that both surprised and delighted him. It wasn’t often that Riku actually came to him of his own accord. The heartbeat on the other side of the door quickened for a brief instant as he turned the knob, causing Ansem to secretly smile. So the boy still held some fear for his captor, he mused as he walked in, acting his part as if he didn’t already know who was there. Fear was always an emotion he could use to his advantage.

“I don’t allow guests to invite themselves in on most occasions.” He spoke with his back turned to the corner where the boy hid in the shadows. “But you are always the welcome exception.”

Ansem nearly laughed as he heard Riku’s breathing stop.

“How did you know?” The boy asked, revealing himself by stepping forward. He held no weapon, nor did he attempt to make a show of being brave. Whatever the reason he had for being there, it clearly wasn’t to fight.

“You decided to hide from a Seeker of Darkness by masking yourself in the dark. Not a very bright move of yours I would say.” Ansem placed several folders worth of documents on top of his desk then turned to face his captive. “However, I can’t say I brought you here for your intellect.”

Riku’s eyes glinted in the moonlight that filtered through the open blinds, glaring at him with unrestrained anger at the insult. Despite that, the boy appeared especially ravishing this night and far be it from Ansem not to notice. Something about the way the light shone on him reminded Ansem of the way the boy had looked back in the Realm of Darkness, standing on the beach and staring off as if he were lost to everything on the physical plane. It had been an absolutely beautiful sight to behold.

“I came here to talk.” Riku growled, throat tightening with the words.

“And here I thought it would have been for other things.” Ansem closed the distance between them. He made no effort to stop himself from catching a fistful of the boy’s hair in his grasp, not pulling on it but appreciating the feathery touch between his fingers. The strands were fine as silk and could have very well been spun from moonlight itself.

“Haa…” Riku breathed as his body tensed, awaiting for the onset of pain that usually accompanied Ansem’s hand in his hair. A small shudder worked its way through the boy as he worked to keep his composure.

Ansem grinned and leaned in to nip at the corner of Riku’s jaw.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re here just to talk.” He said in a deeply husky voice.

“I…” The boy stalled, then pulled himself back through some great effort. Ansem’s hand in his hair didn’t release, but there was visibly a bit more clarity that returned. “It’s about… the kid.”

The older man waved his free hand dismissively, not much in the mood to be distracted.

“Just a side project, I assure you.”

“Side project?”

“Yes.” Ansem found himself growing irritated by the constant questioning. His hand tightened firmly next to Riku’s scalp. “Nothing you should be concerned about.”

“You brought someone else here. He is my concern now.” The boy said firmly, holding back a wince of pain. “What are you going to do to him?”

Ansem sighed from exasperation and released his hold. All of this was easily spoiling his triumphant mood.

“Everything I’ve done to you.” He unfastened his coat, draping it over the edge of the sofa and leaving himself half bare. “He’s a contingency plan of sorts and I need him to be just as you are.”

“What contingency plan?” Riku barked back, apparently unafraid of what using that kind of tone could cost him. “I thought you needed me to be your little… _puppet_ for your plans to work.”

“Jealous?” Ansem smirked and lifted a brow. He made his way into his bedroom to sit on the bed, confident the boy would follow him. “I didn’t think you’d feel so insecure. Especially with someone like him.”

“That’s _not_ what this is about.” The boy ground out as the older man chuckled. Riku had stopped just inside the doorway, uncomfortably looking at the contents of the room.

“You haven’t been performing as well as I had hoped by now.” Ansem explained as he shrugged, removing his boots. “Hope will be here to act as your replacement if your body falls to Darkness, which could very well happen judging by your arm. You’d be a fool to think I haven’t noticed. As such, I’ve decided to take necessary precautions. I’ve never been one to hinge everything on one plan alone.”

It was easy to see the thoughts that flickered over Riku’s face as Ansem explained. There was anger, resentment, even tinges of hurt pride that crossed over him, all of which the older man could read like a book. The boy finally resigned himself on one thought. One thought that Ansem already knew before it even blossomed.

“He… doesn’t need to be here.” Riku spoke slowly. “I won’t let the Darkness take me. Just… please… let him go.”

“A request?” Ansem asked, tilting his head upwards. Riku nodded. “Beg it of me then.”

“...What…?” The boy blanched, unprepared for that response.

“If you want it so badly, then beg.” The words hung in the air between them. A silent moment passed before Riku found his voice.

“I- I… please…”

“Please. _What_?”

“Please release him. He’s… He doesn’t have to be here if I am. I’ll go along with your plans, just let him go.” Riku hung his head in growing shame.

Ansem remained unimpressed.

“That the best you have?”

“ _Please_ , I’m begging you.” Riku walked in closer and dropped to his knees before the Heartless, his breathing ragged. He looked deliciously prone on the floor, kneeling forward in complete submission. “Don’t make anyone else suffer because of me.”

“Well that’s a start.” Ansem sniffed. He made a mental note of just how very much he appreciated Riku bent at the knees. “But I’m afraid now that he’s already seen you, I can’t very well release him. He’s already knows too much, and I can’t risk him coming across someone who might take the initiative to try and thwart my plans.”

“But-”

“I will offer you this though.” The Heartless remained aloof from his position on the edge of the bed. “I won’t force him to entertain me as you do, nor will I tell him about our activities. I ask only for one request be done for me in return.”

“...What… is it?” Riku’s lifted his head from the floor to look directly at him, his face a mixture of pain and deep sorrow.

“It would be a great comfort to always have you close. Spend all of your nights here with me and I promise I will keep my word. Do this, and you may ease his time here considerably.”

With the choice laid before him, Riku knew there was only one answer he could give.

“I… accept.” He choked out, his pride all but laid bare along with himself. There was no hiding the humiliation he felt as he bowed himself forward, but it wasn’t like there was anything else he could do. He had known before he came to speak to the Heartless that something like this was what Ansem always enjoyed being presented with. For Hope’s sake, Riku would have to endure even more, and the other boy could never know about it.

Riku swallowed hard, face pressed into the floor, and knew that if Sora had to do the same thing to protect someone else he wouldn’t even hesitate. He hated how much of himself just wanted to disappear, to end all of this and yet now he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave someone else to suffer the same things he did.

There was no other way he could go, he reasoned.

What was a little more self-loathing anyway?

~❣~

_It was…_

_The absolute last thing he was ever going to do._

_“Don’t hurt Sora!” Riku screamed up and behind him as he hunched over the body of his badly beaten friend. He couldn’t see him. He never could see him. It never changed though. Sora’s wheezing and the muted wet sound as something very hard and very fast rammed straight into Riku’s ribs._

_“You’re too weak to save him!” The bully laughed loudly. “If you weren’t, you’d be able to stop me!”_

_The pain was real. The pain had to be real. Riku curled his body tighter over Sora’s, using every bit of his strength to brace for another inevitable impact. He needed to be stronger, but wondered if he could ever be. He needed to withstand more than just pain. Everything spun as he was sent reeling off to the side and crashed into the pavement in front of their school._

_He tried to get a look at the face that he could never see and was instead gifted with the heel of a shoe that smashed down into his nose. Riku screamed then, throwing his arms up to shield from more vicious stomps. In the back of his mind he hoped that Sora would make it through this with him._

_“Come on Terra! I was thinking you could do better than this!” The bully yelled and threw a series of kicks as hard as he could wherever they would land._

_...Terra?_

_Riku rolled away, broken and bloody and hurting in so many ways it all felt the same. Somewhere Sora was coughing, hoarsely pleading for Riku’s safety. It all fell on deaf ears._

_“Get… up…” Sora whimpered._

_“I’m not… Terra.” Riku didn’t even know who he was talking to._

_One more kick connected with the side of his neck and everything went black._

_“You’ll never learn will you Terra?” The bully’s voice echoed off from leagues away. “You’ll never be strong enough, and you want to know why? Because strength will never be enough for you.”_

~❣~


	5. Blurred Lines

For the first few weeks, the worst thing for Riku about Hope being at the castle was having to hear his screams.

He screamed when Ansem first plucked him right out of his bed one morning and had him drug down to the lab in about the same manner Riku had been the first time. At least, Hope had thought that was screaming. Riku had followed beside as the Soldier Heartless wrestled to control the smaller boy, eyes down and silent as he walked with them once they were successful. Hope pleaded with both, either, _anything_ that could listen for this not to happen to him. He had been warned, though somewhat vaguely, about what his fate was going to be, but that still didn’t deter him from attempting to stop it.

His real screams began when the Darkness was injected. It hurt even Riku to hear them, the way Hope choked on air in between gasping and pleading for his life. There wasn’t as much fight in him after a few minutes had passed, just a resignation that whimpered and cried for all he was worth. Riku could do nothing to stifle him, or comfort him. He just watched, horrified, as the body of a boy who he had just met struggled to control that which was virtually uncontrollable.

Riku wasn’t exempt from the Darkness either, and while he didn’t necessarily think his own life was in danger anymore from it, the sounds of the other boy made him all the more aware of how close to death he really was. There was next to nothing stopping either of them from slipping into the Darkness for eternity. Nothing, except for their own will to survive. Listening to Hope was more difficult in its own way than trying to stop the spread of the ice that ran through his veins. More difficult than trying to please Ansem night after night.

Hope was little more than catatonic after his first injection and Ansem wasn’t in the least bit concerned about it.

“It’s always the first time.” The Heartless explained. “If he manages to suppress it, than he has a good chance to continue living. You were the same, if you don’t recall. It’s like a disease, if you think about it. Your body has to build an immunity.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Riku asked, not sure if he was concerned for the boy really as much as he was shocked by how Ansem acted like he couldn’t have cared less either way.

“Then I suppose he joins with the rest of his world.”

After that, Riku did everything he could to help his fellow prisoner. He watched over Hope as the boy shivered and shook through the gnawing cold. He gave him warm blankets when what he had wasn’t enough, and he made sure that he had whatever kind of sustenance he needed. It wasn’t for the sake of friendship, or even the potential to gain an ally to help him escape. Riku just couldn’t let some boy who had barely managed to flee from his world die in a place with everyone else thinking him dead.

No one deserved to die like that.

“You d-don’t have to be here.” Hope’s teeth chattered as he spoke one afternoon with both of them in his room, blankets covering him all the way up to his ears. He had gotten better over the weeks. Frail, but finally able to talk and move around on his own.

“I don’t have anything else to do.” Riku shrugged dismissively. “I’m sure it gets boring being in here all the time.”

“W-when I’m not dreaming, I guess it d-does.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“Mostly of home.” Hope buried his head in the soft fabric. “I mean- The home I once had.”

Home had become such a foreign idea to either of them that the concept was almost lost. Outside of the Graveyard Castle there was nothing, just an expanse of shells of what once was, that sometimes it was hard to remember that they themselves were still among the living. Riku struggled with the thought that somewhere out there his friends were still going about their lives in the same way they always had. They still ate together, laughed with each other, even still loved each other. Not all life began and ended how Ansem dictated.

“You may not have a home left, but we can find you a new one.” Riku tried to assure him. “Somewhere out there, there has to be someone who escaped your world just like you did.”

The look on Hope’s face hardened.

“There’s only one person who escaped that I c-care about.”

“A friend of yours?”

Something dark filtered through Hope’s eyes, something that Riku had seen the first time they met. He didn’t like it. Still couldn’t find himself to entirely trust it, but at the present moment he chose to ignore it for the sake of other boy’s recovery.

“No.” Hope whispered. “The man who killed my mother.”

~❣~

Phasing was much less like teleporting and more like controlled gliding. At least, that’s how Riku tried to rationalize it.

The concept in and of itself wasn’t hard, and when it was done properly it felt similar to how he imagined flying would be. It was liberating, in a sense, to be able to cross distances with hardly any need for exertion on his part and it came to him so _naturally_. All of his abilities, all of the lessons that he had exercised his energies into finally were beginning to pay off. It was exhilarating, being able to see what he could actually accomplish.

On this day, Ansem had been nowhere to be found, which allowed for both the boys in the training hall to relax, even just a little. Without the hovering reminder of imminent punishment and constantly being reprimanded for not precisely following form, it could almost be said that it was a good day. Days that the Heartless failed to appear were rare, and neither were ever offered an explanation as to where or what he did. For all Riku could guess, Ansem could have very well gone out to gather more Heartless swarms, or kidnap other vulnerable people to torment. Whatever the reality was, it wasn’t his concern what the older man did during the day.

Riku had been charged with training Hope in at least the basic maneuvers of sword fighting, as per Ansem’s detailed request written on a piece of parchment that had been left on the bed. He took the responsibility as seriously as he could, even if it was proving to be a challenge. Hope was willing, even eager to learn, but there was only so much he could handle with the growing Darkness inside him. He struggled to keep himself in check from using too much Darkness and provoking it to attempt to consume him, and using too little and thus not be able to perform as well as he should have.

On Destiny Islands Riku had prided himself on being the best and first to learn new moves out of his circle of friends. Wakka and Tidus never could keep up with him and Sora had a way of entirely missing the point of whatever it was that Riku was trying to convey. His best friend had always gone about doing things his own way, regardless of whether or not it would actually make him any stronger. It was a mentality that Riku could never fully understand, and had given up trying years ago. Sora would always be Sora.

There was some degree of satisfaction however that came with showing off something new. Normally Riku would hold off until everyone was on the island to watch, eager to see what their reactions would be. After he was done it was fairly predictable. Tidus and Wakka would say how ‘cool’ it was to have a friend who knew how to fight so well, and Kairi would just smile and nod approvingly like she always did. Sora… without fail would ask Riku to do it again, but this time his friend would put his own skills to the test.

Riku had thrived on the praise he received, back when things were much less complicated. Now, his only audience was Hope, who was having problems of his own.

“Right arm up.” Riku advised. “Elbow up. You’re letting it hang too low.”

Hope gritted his teeth together, raising his tired limb as high as he could manage. He and Riku had both been running through the same exercises for hours and both were feeling the strain of it, him admittedly more so. He didn’t have the stamina to keep up with his sparring partner for nearly as long though it wasn’t for a lack of effort. Try as he might, he couldn’t contend with the boy from the islands.

“I’m trying.” He spoke more out of frustration and pain than anger. “Like this?”

Riku shook his head.

“Shoulder back.” He walked over to the other boy, hesitant to touch him, but eventually guided his arm into the correct position. “You have to keep it firm, otherwise your reactions will be too slow. This stance isn’t all about power, but speed and precision. If you aren’t ready to strike at any time, you’ll be as good as dead.”

Hope’s eyes flickered with an unknown emotion, but he held his sword arm up with his own version of SoulEater in his grasp. He had named his blade AirWing, for reasons entirely unknown to Riku. But then, it wasn’t like he had really bothered to ask. The two hadn’t really pried into each other’s past lives from before the Graveyard Castle. Which, admittedly, he was thankful for. There were just some things that were too painful to speak of.

“How about now?” Hope asked.

“Better.” Riku nodded and mimicked the same action himself. “If you have it right then you’ll be able to rotate your arm in whatever direction you need to which gives you the advantage. No matter what direction you’re attacked from, you should be prepared to block and then counter it.”

He demonstrated slowly, exaggerating the move so that Hope could see everything clearly. SoulEater was first held high, then swung low before it arched its way across his body as he propelled himself forward. There was a fluidity of the movement that came naturally to him, something that he doubted could ever be taught through traditional methods, but could only be learned through months, maybe years, of rigorous practice. In swordplay there was only so much a teacher could do, the rest was always up to the interpretation of the trainee. Some people were simply gifted with a talent for it. Others had to struggle for even a glimpse of it.

There was no denying that Hope tried to do what he could. Tenacity, however, could only go so far. The boy was too soft, too uncoordinated to truly equal, let alone rival his predecessor. Riku often wondered what in all the worlds Ansem had seen in this kid. What few redeeming features the kid had was constantly overshadowed by his shortcomings. However, as long as Hope kept showing the will to keep fighting, Riku had no choice but to continue to try and encourage him along.

Hope gathered himself up once Riku was done, eager to try it out on his own.

“I can do it.” He said, resuming his starting stance with AirWing lifted high.

“You think so huh? Try not to be too predictable.” Riku tightened his grip on SoulEater’s handle, eager to finally have himself a real challenge for once.

He backed up to where he was a short distance away with both of them facing each other, his face betraying a slight smile that couldn’t be suppressed. It felt good to be back doing something that didn’t require anything of himself that he didn’t want to give. This was something he felt comfortable with, something he didn’t have to over think or wonder what was in store for him next. For maybe the first time in months, his mind could settle in the knowledge that he actually enjoyed practicing.

Hope didn’t rear back as had been his normal instinct, a habit that had been all but literally beat out of him in the weeks since he had been brought to the castle. Ansem had been swift in training him to not project his moves so blatantly. Since then, the boy had gotten better by some small degree. He didn’t shy away from pain near as much as he did before, nor did he hesitate about giving it. If there was any opportunity given for him to prove his worth, he took it without a second thought.

The first series of strikes were exactly as Riku thought they would be. Not quite as swift as they should have been, but certainly had some degree of power behind them. He blocked each one without straining himself, waiting to see what Hope would do to compensate for the failure to connect. Next his opponent tried to be clever and unexpected. Riku found it was almost amusing as he kicked outward, catching Hope’s thigh and pushing him back.

“Damn it!” Hope cursed, stumbling then regaining himself.

“You’re letting me decide how this fight goes.” Riku circled around him. “You need to know when and how to engage. That’s the only way you’re going to win.”

“How do I do that when you’re always blocking my attacks?” Hope snorted and brushed his bangs out of his face.

“Well now that’s the real question isn’t it?” A full smirk widened across Riku’s face. He spread his arms out wide with a small bow in a mocking gesture of leaving himself wide open.

It was an obvious feint, and Hope fell for it every time. The other boy launched himself like a madman, aiming to cut Riku down to size through sheer willpower alone. A yell resonated through the old training hall as Hope slashed in any way he possibly could with the intentions that _something_ might just actually hit. It was easy to rile him up and Hope knew it, but it made no difference. One day he would actually wipe that smug look right off Riku’s face.

After a few blows that failed to do anything other than to slice through thin air, Hope stepped to jab at what appeared to be an opening in Riku’s guard. He knew even as he swung that he had made his final mistake for the day. 

Riku spun on one foot, caught AirWing near the hilt and yanked it right out of Hope’s hand. Almost simultaneously SoulEater’s pommel hit Hope on the shoulder to secure the disarm and in an instant he had two blades crossed at Hope’s throat. It was a cunning and graceful move that he’d never seen before, and it would be a lie to say that he wasn’t impressed.

“Yield.” He sighed heavily, not wanting to admit being bested but still held his palms up level with his face. This had almost always been how his sparring practices ended. At the very least now he knew when he was making his mistakes, even if that wasn’t enough to prevent them.

Riku handed him back his blade, hilt first, eyes glittering with victory.

“Come on Sora, I thought you were stronger than that.”

They both stopped, stunned as the name passed into the silent room. Something clenched inside of Riku’s chest, so forceful it hurt to even bring his hand to his heart. For all his self-assured arrogance a moment before, he looked like he had just seen a ghost. His normally tanned skin turned deathly pale and his face lost all of its color. Riku turned quickly, hardly breathing, intent on leaving before the other boy realized the horror of what had just occurred.

For a brief moment he had let his guard down and forgotten where he was. He’d forgotten who _Hope_ was.

Hope wasn't Sora. In truth Hope wasn't much like Sora at all. The two were vastly different in terms of personality, but there were still times that Riku thought he caught glimpses of his lost friend. Mostly it came at times like this, because for whatever reason or another, Hope had the same tendency to keep fighting even when there was no reason to even try. It was so easy to be around that sort of temperament and recall what it was like to spar on their little island in the middle of summer, surrounded by friends and waiting for the sun to drop so they could do it all again the next day.

“H-hey!” Hope caught him by the forearm to stall his escape. Neither of them would have considered the other by any means a close friend, maybe slightly better than acquaintance. But they shared a common hardship, which was enough in Hope’s book to warrant at least some measure of concern. “What was that?”

“Don’t touch me!” Riku cried, flinching, then yanked his arm away and slammed his elbow straight into the other boy’s gut. With a yelp of surprise, Hope fell on his back, hard, sprawling against the ground.

“What the fuck!” He yelled up and at him when he was able to get his voice back.

Riku stopped in his tracks, unsure whether to apologize or be even more angry with what he had just done. He hadn't meant to lash out as strongly as he had, but the thought of something, _someone_ , having any sort of contact with his skin made him feel physically sick. He'd been like that, he noticed, ever since Ansem had begun taking him into his bed and it was only getting worse. There was no way to control how terrible it made him feel whenever someone’s hands got close to any part of his body.

“...sorry.” Riku murmured, trying his best to stop whatever it was that felt like it was going to tear him apart from the inside out.

Whatever it was, it hurt in a different sort of way than the physical pain he’d grown accustomed to around Ansem. This was deeper, stronger, and ached so badly it made every part of him go numb. Riku knew the feeling of loss, but never to this degree. This wasn’t just the loss of a friend, but the loss of a part of himself that he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to get back. On the ever-growing list of things that Ansem had taken from him, the worst of them all was having Sora gone.

“Seriously? I didn’t know anything could get under your skin like that.” Hope brushed himself off without taking advantage of the helping hand Riku offered. He’d never seen the other boy act so defensive before, even when Ansem was around. It was jarring to see someone who always seemed to keep his cool so incredibly bothered. In some ways it was almost a relief to know that he was at least somewhat human underneath all the bravado. That maybe, in the deepest part of his heart there might have actually been someone who _cared_.

“Don’t start thinking that I’m going to make a habit of it.” Riku’s green eyes flickered dangerously. He sneered as he made his way out of the hall, unwilling to practice any more for that evening.

“So… Who's Sora then?” Hope ventured to ask, knowing full well that he may as well be kicking a hornet’s nest for all it was worth. The question was enough to stop Riku from leaving, but when he turned there was obvious displeasure written across his features.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” The elder boy’s voice dropped to a menacing hiss. “Leave it alone.”

“You brought it up. I think you owe me something of an explanation after pushing me around like that.”

There was something hovering right in the corners of Riku’s eyes, a panic almost. Hope wasn’t stupid enough not to notice, but was careless enough to keep pressing the issue. For some reason he needed to know what was going through the older boy’s head. Someone else out there had to know what it was like to lose everything, just like he had.

“I don’t owe you _anything_.” Riku growled, his temper rising with every syllable.

“Right. Because I forget that you’re stronger so that means you get to do whatever you want and you don’t have to answer to anyone around here. Is that it? You said the name, now I want to know. Who’s Sora?”

“A friend.” Riku offered a curt answer, his right hand slowly balling up into a fist. “He’s- He _was_ my friend.”

“Not so much since you decided to join up with… him?”

“It’s… more complicated than that.”

“Does he even know you’re here?” Hope asked, on the off chance that some sort of rescue might come in the form of whatever friend Riku managed to have. Which was strange to think of, the more Hope dwelt on the subject. The island boy having friends seemed like such a strange concept, considering his consistently foul nature and prideful attitude. As far as Hope was concerned, whoever could tolerate having Riku for a friend was either the luckiest, or most _unlucky_ person in all the worlds.

“No.” Riku looked towards an indeterminate spot on the ceiling, having to drag his breath out of constricted lungs. “In all honesty, he probably thinks I’m dead.”

“So I guess then we really are stuck here.” Hope voiced his dismay.

“We can try to get out. But I’m going to need your help to do that.” Riku’s words were whispered, as if he feared that someone would overhear them in a room that was empty aside from themselves. “I’ve got… responsibilities to perform at night. I can’t go looking around the castle to find out what Ansem put in place to keep us here. If you could-”

“You want me to go snooping around the castle in the middle of the night?” Hope asked incredulously. The castle wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of places to observe even in the daylight. “I think I’ll pass on that one. Why don’t you do it when you’ve got a night off?”

Riku’s face soured.

“I don’t have nights off.”

Hope couldn’t even begin to guess what it was that had Riku so damn occupied that he couldn’t have been bothered to break away even once, but it was obvious that it was a matter that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

“Fine. I’ll go.” Hope begrudgingly agreed. “But I don’t even know what I’m looking for though. What is it that you’re wanting me to find?”

“I don’t know.” Riku shook his head. “There has to be a reason that Ansem hasn’t stopped us from wandering around. He’s not stupid enough to think that we wouldn’t try to get out, so why hasn’t he locked us up when he’s not keeping an eye on us?”

“Maybe he doesn’t think we would have the time to get very far?”

“No. He wouldn’t take a risk like that. It has to be something else. He has to be so damn certain that whatever it is, we will never be able to beat it no matter what we try. Something that will keep us here even when he’s not around.”

“If there’s some kind of monster waiting out there, I don’t think I’m ready to face something like that.” Hope swallowed back his terror. “At the first sign of something going wrong-”

“Run.” Riku was deathly serious. “You run and don’t look back.”

Hope breathed deeply. This was going to be a long night.

“I hope this is worth it.”

~❣~

It was getting more difficult to tell the difference between where Riku’s desires ended and Ansem’s began.

As opposed to the study, Ansem’s room was continuously shrouded in shadows. It made some sense, whenever Riku thought about it. The Master of Darkness preferred to keep his most personal of areas veiled, though dim enough so it was comfortable to some degree. The thick blinds were always drawn to prevent any amount of excess light from leaking in, so that the only illumination that was provided was only by a multitude of candles. They gleamed softly from the many fixtures that lined the walls and from a low-hanging chandelier directly in the center of the room.

With this sort of atmosphere, Ansem appeared almost radiant. His deeply tanned skin gave off a faint, but slightly noticeable glow and his stark white hair may have well been iridescent for the way the flames cast their light straight through the strands. The Heartless was always comfortable with whatever he had, or lacked for, in clothing. Most times, Riku had gotten used to seeing the Heartless at least with his top half bare, though it wasn’t by any means out of the ordinary for him to be fully nude when the boy was his only company. This night Riku counted himself lucky enough to witness the Heartless wearing only heavy leather pants and a sinister smile.

“How goes it with the teaching of your new charge?” The deep voice of Ansem reverberated all the way down into Riku’s very core. “Is he progressing well?”

Riku was shaking. He didn’t want to be shaking, but the tips of his fingers absolutely refused to stay still.

“He’s doing what he can.” Riku attempted to explain. “I’ve been working to show him how to get better, but he’s...”

“He’s what?” Ansem’s tone was clipped and brokered no contest.

“He’s weak.” The boy answered with as much resolved as he could gather. “I don’t know how much of this he’s going to be able to take. He wasn’t ready for this, when you brought him here. There’s a limit to how much someone like him can handle.”

Ansem’s lip twisted into a cruel snarl.

“You’re saying he’s useless to me then.”

“Not useless.” Riku squared his shoulders off and rested his eyes defiantly on the Heartless’ face. “But you’re expecting too much too quickly. He needs more time to adjust and you’re not giving him any. You’re not even giving him a fighting chance. If you want him to get better, then you have to stop treating him like he’s me.”

“I see you’ve gained some of your spirit back. Come here. I wish for you to be closer.” The Heartless leaned forward from his usual position on the bed. He instructed calmly, articulating each word at his leisure.

Riku recoiled, refusing to move from his place near the bedside.

“What more do you want from me?” He asked, though it wasn’t a far stretch of the imagination of what Ansem’s purposes were. Being forced to entertain was just another part of living in the castle, but that didn’t mean he always had to bend and cater to every single whim. Riku was his own person, his own decision maker, and he had gone to great lengths to ensure it stayed that way.

“Don’t make me say it again, _pet_.” Ansem’s bright golden eyes became veiled as his eyelids dropped over them.

“I’m not your pet!” Riku’s voice was rich with the sound of disgust and contempt. “I’m not anyone’s pet!”

“You are mine.” The older man stretched out his arm to rest his hand on the boy’s wrist. It was a slow movement, calm, and Riku did his very best not to flinch away. “Ever since we joined together at Hollow Bastion, you’ve been mine to do with as I please. And you do please me _ever_ so greatly.”

The boy allowed himself to be drawn in close, so close that the musky scent of the man was nearly overwhelming. It permeated and controlled nearly all of his senses, interacting with the Darkness inside him that hungrily desired for more than just gentle caressing. Something buried deep within called for more, so much more than Riku had ever allowed.

Defying Ansem’s advances, while it gave him some degree of self respect, never ended with anything being in Riku’s favor. Usually it just meant that the Heartless still got what he wanted, and Riku would be left bound and tormented long afterwards for it. On some days he just wanted to rebel, but he knew that even if he could fend off Ansem until the end of time itself, there would still never be a way to rid the curse the Darkness inflicted upon him. The nagging was still there, present, and growing.

“Don’t fight it.” Ansem purred into his neck, tugging away the boy’s shirt. “Save your fighting for practice, not here. Here, you can be free.”

“This isn’t free.” Riku complained and shut his eyes, focusing on the fingers that ran all the way up his arms and traveled down the front of his chest. 

“How is this not freedom?” The Heartless quipped back. “You get to finally be true to yourself, to what you secretly have always wished for.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“No?” Ansem’s hands roamed lower, dipping into the boy’s pants. “And here I thought you were just pleased to be in my company.”

It was humiliating, having his cock drawn out of his pants like it was some sort of prize. There was no denying how Ansem expertly worked over his flesh, drawing Riku up and into his lap, gasping and shivering the entire while. The older man knew just how and where to put the right kind of pressure, to stroke and caress to keep him ripe and ready to be used. Of course, Riku’s body responded in kind. He could feel the throbbing as his cock was teased and caressed into full hardness. He couldn’t deny the flush feeling of his skin in his face and his neck.

“I…” Riku moaned out louder than he had intended when fingers ran teasingly over the head of his member. “I’m just doing this… uhn… to keep Hope safe.”

“Is that all?” Ansem snickered and flipped the boy over and onto his back on the bed. It wasn't done harshly, but with enough force to demonstrate that it didn’t take much effort to move him exactly where the older man had wanted.

“...yes.” Riku breathed, eyes fluttering and his tangled grip in the sheets tightened. He could feel as his more primal instincts overtook his rational mind, telling him that this felt good, better than anything else he’d ever known, and to surrender himself over to it entirely. It was as if there was another force inside him that told him he _did_ want this. He _needed_ this more than anything else in the world and the only person who could give it to him was Ansem.

Ansem who had possessed him. Ansem who had kidnapped, tortured, and repeatedly had his way with him. This being with his shining golden eyes that always looked like they were on a knife’s edge in between hysterical madness and absolute control had somehow become the only thing Riku could focus on. That and the way his entire body _ached_ for a release that was steadily building inside him. The boy trembled, unashamedly groaning and whimpering for a climax he needed more than anything else in all the worlds.

He hadn’t wanted this, just like every time he came into Ansem chambers, but now he couldn’t stop himself from wishing he had just a little bit more to push him over the edge.

“Easy pet.” The Heartless cooed, removing his hands gently and leaving the boy to writhe alone on the bed. “You’ve been doing so well recently, I’ve wanted to reward you.”

“Hhn.” Riku’s hands moved on their own, intent on finishing what Ansem had started.

“No.” The older man chastised him, forcing his hands away. It was infuriating, how close he was and yet so denied. “Not yet. I will give you what you need, do not fret yourself over that. If you cannot resist, I’ll make sure your hands are otherwise occupied.”

With the threat still lingering Ansem went to work removing the last of the boy’s clothes as well as his own. It was easy enough, getting the pants off of Riku, the boy was already slick with a thin sheen of sweat that made them nearly glide off his skin. He didn't resist as Ansem stripped him, just stared off at some other place with a look that spoke volumes of how much he was trying to not let his true feelings show.

Ansem was leering at him from above, proud and erect in more ways than one. He breathed deeply, almost purring as he sank down in the bed beside the boy. His mouth pressed a gentle kiss right at the tender juncture between Riku’s hip and his groin.

“You've made me proud.” The Heartless spoke softly. “So very proud of all the effort you've put into getting stronger. I couldn't ask for more from you. Consider this a gift for your service.”

Ansem’s mouth descended onto Riku’s wanting flesh and with a cry of surprise, and undeniable need, the boy arched his body up and into it. Ansem took him in his entirety, without hesitation or repulsion. The intense feeling of heat alone was enough to surpass anything that Riku had expected, coupled with a tongue that massaged its way all the way down his length was enough to make his head swim. He’d dreamed of this, or something like this. Not with Ansem, but someone else. Someone dearer and much closer to his heart.

The older man took his time with giving out pleasure, pulling his head back until he was nearly out of reach before dipping back in again. It was a torturously slow process, for which Riku couldn’t have said if he was thankful or not. With each time that Ansem swallowed him, he could feel himself tense harder, straining for what little bit of control he had left. He moaned and gasped in desperation, wanting this to end while at the same time hoping that he could feel like this forever. It was a wicked predicament, and one that Ansem pressed his advantage over with expert skill.

“Haa… unnh…” Riku groaned out, breathing heavily and just as he was about to slide off the precipice it all suddenly went away. His eyes snapped open, not realizing they had been closed, and fixed on his tormentor. Ansem had moved off the bed to grab up a vial he kept at the ready on a nightstand, leaving Riku’s pulsating member coated with a mixture of saliva and his own bodily fluids. The man coated his fingers in oil and came back to the boy on the bed, who was all but begging to be touched again.

“Such earnest.” Ansem spoke in a husky voice. One hand held Riku’s quivering hip down and into the bed, while the other probed at his entrance. “It’s a wonder that you ever even try to deny yourself this. I’ve never had a pet who resisted for so long.”

“I’m not… ahn… your pet.” Riku growled and twisted as the older man slipped two fingers up inside of him. He had never quite gotten used to the feeling of something invading him. The oil helped to alleviate some of the pain, allowing him to relax a bit more, and for that, he was grateful. However it took some mental fortitude for him to not wriggle and pull himself away from the fingers that scissored and stretched him wider.

“Do you really want to argue this now?”

By the time the third was added, Riku was in no position to contest any further. He was nearly writhing in a maddening display of acute longing. There was no way for him to resist any longer as they curled, rubbing and teasing the spot inside him that unraveled him in nearly every sense of the word. From the pit of his stomach, a curling heat gathered the more Ansem probed him, churning and swirling before settling down and into his groin. He was warm, nearly unbearably warm.

It was easy to see the affect he had on the older man, the dilated eyes and the lewd grin plainly gave it away. The way Ansem always looked like he was drinking in the sight of him made him want to crawl out of his own skin on more than one occasion. There were times he was convinced it wasn’t just him that Ansem was staring at. It was almost like there was a ghost right behind him, beside him, that Riku had been meant to replace.

Almost like how Hope was meant to replace him.

When Ansem had deemed that he had given the boy enough time to get comfortable with the intrusion, fingers were replaced with something much larger and unforgiving. The Heartless was formidable in his own right, enough to leave Riku sore for at least a day afterward. The boy swallowed hard, trying his best to remember that if he didn’t tense, no matter how much he wanted to, it made all the difference. Ansem was never patient for very long once he began to move inside him.

Riku had to force himself to recall that it was a simple matter of relaxing, breathing, and riding out the sensations.

With himself already fairly well prepared, it didn’t take much for Ansem to seat himself. It was almost too much to handle, right on the cusp of being filled so perfectly and being completely torn apart. Riku gasped loudly, his back arching up as much as he could before the older man pressed him back down and into the bed again. The sudden movement served to only enhanced the feelings, twinges of pain laced with a pure ecstasy that melded into something that put his mind into unadulterated bliss.

Ansem moved and Riku bit his lip to hold back his cry.

Breathe. Relax. He shuddered deeply, his cock hard and dripping and needing even a phantom’s touch to release him.

“You are… beautiful…” Ansem growled, his fingers digging harshly into the skin on the the boy’s sides. “You… are mine.”

Riku was ashamed that every time the Heartless thrust into him, his hips raised up to meet him. He was ashamed of how he panted out meaningless words the deeper Ansem’s member plunged into him. The words were nothing, meant nothing but filled in the void of silence other than the wet sound of flesh meeting flesh. He whispered softly, eyes sealed shut and fingers laced behind his head and into his hair.

“Sora… ...Sora…”

If Ansem heard it, he didn’t acknowledge any of it.

With a deep grunt, the Heartless began to concentrate his thrusts, driving in even further and harder. He leaned forward, teeth latching onto the boy’s collarbone to leave a mark of possession that bruised the skin, almost hard enough to draw blood. Riku’s heated moans devolved into hisses of pain, and his hands coming forward to try and detach the older man away from him. It did nothing to dissuade Ansem, instead only encouraging him to bite down harder. The heat in Riku’s groin returned in full force, spurred by the pain near his throat and the constant pleasure of having his prostate repeatedly brushed. It was too many sensations to process. So much that they left him only able to hear the pounding of his heartbeats and the sound of his staggered breathing.

It was only when Ansem was about to finish himself that he touched Riku’s member once again. He stroked the boy in time with every thrust, holding his cock in between both of their bodies, encasing him in warmth with firm, smooth pumps. He grinned as he watched the boy’s eyes roll up, trembling and shaking in final elation. It didn’t take much to release him, and Ansem was obviously unworried by what coated his hand or ended up anywhere else. He followed with his own release almost immediately after, buried as deeply as he could have possibly been, heaving and dipping his head forward, draping the boy in a curtain of white hair.

Both Master and student lay panting on the bed for a few quiet minutes, each lost within their own minds.

“...why me?” Riku’s voice sounded tired, used.

“You reminded me of someone from many years ago.” Ansem responded slowly, pulling himself out before moving to lie down next to him. “Though, I doubt that you could equal him in terms of strength. At least, not as you are now. He was arrogant, but submitted to everything so beautifully before me. He knew what was required of him, and gave it all without question. I doubt I could ever find someone else to rival him.”

“What happened to him?”

Ansem’s eyes darkened for an instant, shrouded in a memory that could never be dulled.

“He was taken from me.”

~❣~

If Hope had thought that the castle was deathly silent during the day, then it was more so than that at night.

He crept from hallway to hallway, precariously on the lookout for any pair of glowing yellow eyes that would mean a lot more trouble than Hope wanted to deal with. It wasn’t like Ansem had patrols out at all times, but it wasn’t uncommon to see Heartless seeming to aimlessly wander the halls. He had asked one time, what they were there for, and hadn’t received any real answer to sate his curiosity. As best as he could tell, they were the ones who helped maintain the place. It wasn’t as if the kitchens ever went empty or the damages that had been done to the place went unattended. It made sense, in some weird way that these creatures served a slightly higher function other than just devouring their prey.

Regardless, it didn’t make Hope any less wary of them. They may have been slightly better than their animalistic nature would have normally degraded them to, but it didn’t make them any less dangerous. Even a single Heartless, aggravated, was cause enough for Hope to seriously consider how very little he actually knew of how to defend himself. What he knew was better than most, but no way on par to fighting with a being that was out to tear the living heart from his chest.

Best avoid that encounter if by all means possible.

Looking for an escape was all well and good if one knew where to look. If it was a cell they were in, then it would have been a simple matter of finding the corresponding key for the right lock. However in a prison that appeared to have no walls, no guards, and no chains, what would prohibit them from simply walking out the front door? Riku had to be right about Ansem being a smarter man than just assuming that the boys would stay put because he told them so, but then why hadn’t he shown them the reason they couldn’t leave?

It didn’t make sense, Hope snickered to himself. Then again, nothing had since he had met the white haired man who promised him the key to his revenge. His entire life had been turned upside down, and somehow it had ended up with him sneaking about through the darkened halls of a forgotten castle, wondering if someone or something would jump out at him at any given moment.

Just the kind of life he had always wanted.

The obvious place to look was the front gate. Hope figured that if Ansem had placed any sort of terrifying Heartless in charge of prowling the outside of the castle, then there would be its primary focus. It was a gamble of sorts, to find out just what sort of creature is was, but it was the best guess he had. With a short sigh of resignation, Hope made his way towards the front of the castle, counting himself lucky enough to not hear or see anything malicious as he went.

As he almost was half-expecting, even the front doors were unmanned. Hope shook his head, not wanting to believe it was all this simple. Maybe it had all just been mind games that the Heartless was playing with them to keep them there, and the sad thing about it was that it _worked_. He’d stayed put for who knew how long, all because he was afraid of what could have, or _should_ have been. Hope wanted to laugh, to proclaim that he had found out and bested this ridiculous game he hadn’t even known he’d been a part of. Ansem had no real control over him, or Riku for that matter. Just the illusion of it.

Satisfied that the coast was clear, and with his confidence boosted by his new found revelation, Hope walked out the front door.

It was a clear night, just like so many others, and there was a prevailing sense of peace that came along with the cool fresh air. The moon was nearly half-full, but still provided plenty of light to see by. Hope stood for a brief moment, basking in its presence, as well as the thought that this was the first time since Hollow Bastion that he had actually done something that hadn’t been instructed of him. He was free to go wherever he wanted to, and he wouldn’t have to answer to anyone for it. The only thing left between him and his revenge was just finding a way off of this world.

Hope had plenty of time before the sun would be rising, time to adventure further out past the castle grounds he figured. If there was some sort of ship hidden for him to procure, it was very possible that it was being stored out beyond the walls. He walked through the courtyard, past the empty gardens and pedestals toward the final pair of gates that marked the perimeter of the castle. The gates themselves were wide open, a promising sight to one looking to escape.

He made it right up to the gates and was stopped dead by a force that knocked his whole body back and onto the ground.

The impact of hitting something invisible face-first wasn’t tremendous enough to break his nose, but certainly startled him to the point of letting out a loud yelp of surprise. Hope rubbed his face, easing away the pain of his injured nose, wondering what in the all the worlds had stopped him. There was nothing to see, not exactly. If he looked very hard in the empty space between the two gates he thought he could almost see something shimmering in the moonlight. It was a faint, almost opalescent hue that reverberated and disappeared within the blink of an eye. Not something he would have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it.

Hope stood again, cautiously this time, and with an outstretched hands walked forward to where he had been a moment earlier. His palms came into contact with something in mid air, an invisible wall it seemed, that had been placed at the exit to the castle.

“What…” Hope breathed out, his hands moving across the cold, smooth surface of the barrier. “...is this…?”

It didn’t move as he traced where it began and ended, from one side of the arching gateway to the other. He could see it better when he touched it. There was a thin glow around his hands that made it easier to detect. Within a few minutes of inspection, it was apparent that there was no break or crack to be found in the barrier. It perfectly encompassed the entire exit, even all the way to the ground. Hope ground his teeth together, angry in the knowledge of now knowing that their prison did indeed have walls.

“Stupid…” He hissed, summoning AirWing in his hand and swinging it full force at the barrier. “Wall!”

AirWing bounced back and was almost sent flying from his grip. Hope’s arm shuddered with the resounding impact, but it seemed to have done nothing in regards to breaking the barrier down. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Hope sighed heavily, placing his free hand back onto the invisible wall, wishing he had a better idea of how to get past it.

Something triggered in between the dark mark on his hand and the barrier, something that Hope hadn’t expected. He could feel barrier trembling just barely underneath his touch, echoing all the way around the entire castle. The mark on his hand pulsed strongly, and Hope had to yank his hand away to sever the connection. He looked at his arm, wrapped in a cloth from wrist almost to elbow, and didn’t have to see to know that it was growing in size. He’d been careful, more careful than when he first arrived, to try and hide it from Riku, but the reality was that he wasn’t getting any better.

“It’s… alive.” Hope’s face raised up towards the sky, knowing exactly what he was looking for.

It didn’t take long to spot it and he found that from the middle of the courtyard he could see it clearly. 

Hovering over the castle, over the towers and the spires, and large enough to encompass nearly the entire courtyard, a giant Heartless symbol was suspended against the clear night sky.

~❣~

_It was a perfect day to be on the island._

_Sora wasn’t too far off, swimming circles in what wasn’t quite the shallows but wasn’t anywhere near open waters. It had been a lazy sort of afternoon. Neither of them had been motivated enough to work on the raft, but there were no complaints. Sometimes it was just nice to relax and not have anything at all to do. They had been having fun in whatever way they wanted and nothing on their island disturbed them._

_The most perfect kind of day._

_“The water feels awesome!” Sora called out, waving at him as he relaxed in the sand._

_He had been building a castle for a short while, one with thick walls and narrow windows. There was even a large tower about in the center of it, imposing over all the rest. It wasn’t a huge project, just something he had come up with on a whim._

_“You swim.” He called back, smiling. “I’m going to finish this.”_

_“Come on!” Sora pleaded. “Please?”_

_He hadn’t really felt like swimming, then again, he never could say no._

_He had almost gotten his shirt off when the sea pulled back away from the island. He had heard it receding, a deep rumble that slowly went silent. Sora was left in the middle of what had once been chest high water, standing on sand littered with shells and fish._

_“Terra…” Sora sounded panicked, too terrified to know whether it he should run or stay. A giant wave had rolled in behind him, threatening to crush him and everything else along its path._

_He could see it hovering over his best friend, frozen right before it was about to break._

_“Sora!” He cried out, racing to get to him before it was too late, but he couldn’t move fast enough._

_“Terra!”_

_The wave collapsed and Sora was gone in an instant. All that was left was a castle on the beach, and a friend that couldn’t work up enough of a voice to scream._

~❣~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Finally 1/3 of the way through this monstrous creation of mine.
> 
> So little facts about this chapter (in case you're interested):  
> \- When Riku falls asleep on the floor in Chapter 1, there's mention of a rumbling noise that goes through the entire castle. Yeah, that was Ansem summoning forth the Barrier Heartless. Foreshadowing!  
> \- The fight practice between Hope and Riku is loosely based off of an experience I've actually had. You haven't lived until you've tried to fight with someone who is a whole six inches taller than you, has had military training, and blocks every single thing you try to do. All I'm saying is, I sympathize with Hope on a personal level.
> 
> Many, many thanks for the kudos and to K for the beautiful comment!! You are all wonderful!


	6. Dust

“Again.” Ansem barked out the command so loudly that it echoed throughout the entire training hall.

The only response Hope could manage was a violent cough as he found himself unable to keep his entire body from spasming with the force. He bit back a whimper of pain as his lungs constricted, tightened so much that it felt like a stab in the middle of his chest, and gasped for much needed air even as the feeling of ice traveled straight up his spine and into his throat. A shiver passed through him and he reflexively bent forward, forced to place his hands on his knees to keep himself from falling over. It was painful and humiliating and of course there was no helping it.

Every day the chill seemed to only get colder and every day he could almost watch the black skin on his arm crawling ever closer towards his heart.

It had been some time since his discovery of the Barrier Heartless guarding the outside of the castle, but there had been a distinctly accelerated rate at which the mark on him had been spreading since then. There was no longer any point in trying to hide it. Riku had known almost immediately that something had been wrong as soon as the two had seen each other after that night. All it had taken was one look and a deep frown and Hope knew that the older boy was more than displeased with how ineffective he was at controlling the Darkness inside him. Ansem as well had his ways with showing his dissatisfaction.

“Is there a problem?” Ansem was practically silent as he strode up beside the younger of the boys, scowling.

“N-no.” Hope held back another cough that threatened to follow up on the first. “I'm fine.”

“Clearly.” The Heartless turned away quickly, arms resting folded behind his back. “Then resume.”

Riku looked over at his friend from a little ways off, questioning with an upturned eyebrow just how much longer Hope would be able to withstand Ansem’s constant demands. The two locked eyes for a wordless instant, allowing for Hope to offer a slight nod to assure Riku that he could, in fact, keep going. It wasn’t enough to completely dissuade the older boy’s concern, but, for the time being, it had to suffice. Ansem was less than human when it came to offering any kind of sympathy and there was no way that Hope was even going to attempt to gain it. He knew better than that.

It was a fine line that he walked, in between completely succumbing to the Darkness while at the same time trying to draw on its power. Truth be told, he feared that it wouldn’t be a path he could tread for much longer. Ansem’s irritability towards him was growing more noticeable by the day, to the point where Hope was relieved for each time that the Heartless _wasn’t_ there to berate his every mistake. Riku may have been one to overcome adversity through sheer stubbornness, but Hope couldn’t find the strength within him to want to continue with the persistent harassment.

If anything, it made him want to give up entirely.

He grit his teeth, convincing himself that it would only be a few more hours of torturous practice before he could disappear off into the castle for the rest of night, alone to nurse his wounds. If luck would be so kind, he might even be able to sit for a while in front of the fireplace in his room before he drifted off to sleep. It was rare for him to actually feel like he could get completely warm anymore, but even little things such as the wool blanket he had found in another bedroom offered even minor comfort. With as deep of a breath as he could manage, Hope tried to reassure himself that at least he hadn’t fallen yet. For the time being.

He had just set back into his routine of a few quick thrusts with AirWing when a voice he had never heard before cut in behind him.

“Apologies for interrupting.”

Hope whirled around, startled, and was greeted by the sight of a man with blue hair in a long black trench coat standing at the entrance to the hall. From what he could gather, neither Riku along with himself had been expecting the stranger who strode towards them as if he had been present all along. Hope, while curious enough to stop everything he had been doing, involuntarily shrunk away from the oncoming figure. Whether it was from his imposing presence or some other self-preservation instinct he couldn’t have been sure, but there was something within him that immediately went off at the sight of the newcomer. It all but screamed that this man was danger and death in a way that Hope had never witnessed the likes of before.

Riku, as opposed to him, was glaring down murder as if he hadn’t even a trace of the fear that held Hope so transfixed.

“Is he already waiting?” Ansem also faced the intruder, his voice snapping angrily. “I didn’t think he’d send a mongrel down here to fetch for me like a dog.”

“He… doesn’t care to be kept waiting.” The newcomer chose his words slowly. Elongated canines were partially revealed as he hissed out his declaration, and his fists clenched and cracked as he struggled to keep his own temper from rising. “I come at his behest.”

“You’re the pet.” Ansem strode forward until they were separated by only a handful of paces, sneering softly even as he mocked him with a grin. He knew this man, if only by the letters his Nobody had written about him, by the name of Saix. It was the name Xemnas himself had given to him. “You’re the one who he believes he’s tamed so well.”

Hope had never seen someone who dared to met Ansem’s gaze so evenly, but the newcomer refused to shy away or even blink.

“Should I tell him you’re not interested in joining him in your own office?” The newcomer’s eyes were the same color gold as the Heartless, bright and unnaturally eerie. There was a tensing in his jaw that betrayed the rage bubbling right underneath the surface of his otherwise almost completely passive facial features. “I can see if he would be willing to visit you at another time.”

“Tell me, when you’re not groveling on your knees in front of him, what is it that you do that makes you so loyal?” The Heartless only continued to criticize him, completely ignoring the blatant threat. “Because you’ll pardon if I say that I don’t see loyalty in you. I see fear. It’s not _him_ that you’ve decided to align yourself with, but rather with the concept of who is most powerful.”

The newcomer sniffed and his voice lowered to an unmistakably feral growl.

“If the Superior shared your misgivings in any way, I'm sure he would correct his mistake.”

“I’m sure he would.” Ansem nodded coldly before facing his two students. “Continue with the assignments I’ve given the both of you. Riku… I will expect you later this evening.”

Riku didn’t reply to the command, but there was a noticeably apprehensive shortening of his breath as he watched the two men turn and walk out of the hall. He was still, entirely unmoving as he waited until both the Heartless and the stranger disappeared from the room and out of sight, far down into the hallway. It wasn’t until the steps faded into nothing that he impatiently wheeled around, gaining Hope’s full attention.

“Come on.” He insistently beckoned the younger one and spun on one heel towards the exit opposite of where Ansem and the man in the trench coat had just left.

“Wh- Wait what?” Hope stumbled to catch up to his friend and found that he had to almost run to close the distance with the retreating figure. “What are we doing?”

“Ansem is distracted.” Riku explained, eyes focused straight ahead of him as if there was only one thing that occupied his line of sight. He never stopped walking, taking deep strides so that one of his own nearly doubled Hope’s. “We may not have another opportunity like this for a long time, and we can’t afford to risk that.”

“We’re escaping?”

Hope allowed Riku to guide him down multiple passageways, through back doors and halls that he had never been in before, all with no trace of hesitation on which way to go. The island boy was cautious, never taking them anywhere that could endanger them unnecessarily, but at the same time was direct in getting to their destination. What few Heartless Hope was aware of clearly were not of the boys who rushed past them, dodging around corners or hiding behind archways to keep out of sight. 

The pair nearly sprinted across the threshold of the castle entrance, and Hope was never more thankful that there was nothing else besides them to witness their departure.

“You know how to get past the barrier?” He asked as they exited out the front doors and into the castle courtyard.

“I have an idea.” Riku nodded, still leading them forward. “And if I’m right, then Ansem gave us our own ticket out of here.”

“What’s your idea?”

They slowed only when they neared the area where the Barrier Heartless had been before, and Hope tried to look for the telltale signs of where it was located. He watched as Riku reached outward as they approached the final pair of gates. His hand stopped, pressed against the invisible wall in what looked like midair except for the slight shimmer of the Heartless’ body. The island boy paused, still focused on what was in front of him and appeared to be concentrating, his head bowed in deep thought.

“You said it goes all the way around right?” Riku finally asked, his face set with a growing sense of anticipation.

“Yeah.” Hope agreed, tilting his head to the side in growing confusion. “It’s like a bubble around the castle, I think. When I touched it, I connected with it, somehow. It felt like it goes above us too. That’s why its symbol is all the way up there.”

Riku nodded silently.

“What are you going to do?” Hope pressed him for an explanation, needing to know that this wasn’t an entirely foolish attempt that could possibly land them both on the wrong end of Ansem’s wrath. “Everything I tried to attack it with just got reflected back. You can’t beat it.”

“Not on this side, but if I can find its weak point on the outside, I might be able to.”

“Outside of it? How are you going to-” Hope knew he sounded incredulous, but it couldn’t have been helped. Everything Riku had just said seemed impossible, until a dawning realization struck him. “You’re going to phase through it!”

Riku looked at him intently, one hand still pressed against the only thing keeping them from their escape, the other with SoulEater in his grasp.

“As soon as I’m through, I’ll find its weakness.” He explained. “Be ready to run when I bring it down. I don’t know how much time we’ll have before Ansem realizes that it’s been destroyed, but I don’t think it’s going to be much.”

“What if you can’t?” Hope didn’t want to sound entirely unsure of Riku’s abilities, but neither did he enjoy the prospect of being left behind.

“I will.” Riku promised and faced the barrier once more. “It may take a little time, but I won’t leave you here alone with him.”

It reassured him, even if Hope felt nervous on behalf of the one who was actually going to do the escaping. As much as he didn’t want to, there was no other choice than to trust Riku. Trust that he would keep his word.

In another world, someone else had promise him that they would return as well. It was a promise they never got to keep.

There was a static that charged around the island boy right before he phased out past the gateway. Hope saw it all, felt it prickle over the skin on his arms for all of an instant, and then it was gone and his friend along with it. He gasped as he looked out into the open ground beyond the castle, relieved to see Riku unharmed and standing tall on the other side of the barrier.

“You did it!” He cried, a smile spreading wide across his face.

“Yeah.” Riku turned back to him, triumphant, a grin of his own starting before it suddenly faltered and fell.

From high up above them a wail pierced through the sky, continuing to get progressively louder with every passing moment. The Barrier Heartless howled with the voice of many of its kind all projected into one which reverberated off of every stone and every window, shaking the entire castle with its unmistakable alarm. It cried in a single, uninterrupted note that never wavered, a cry to alert anything and everything within its vicinity of the breach that had just occurred.

Hope dropped to his knees, covering his ears and stared at Riku who was equally frozen in terror. They both locked eyes with each other, not needing to say anything aloud to communicate their exact thoughts.

There was no way Ansem could not have heard.

~❣~

“You brought an entourage.” Ansem accused his Other once he arrived at his personal office, glowering at the sight of yet another another Nobody in a trench coat, this one with an eyepatch over his left eye. He recognized him, from another lifetime, but didn’t allow for any sentimentality. “I didn’t think you needed such protection from me.”

“You have those you like to keep close by.” Xemnas replied in a cool tone, waving his hand towards his two subordinates. He remained deceptively calm, despite how agitated he had become at being forced to wait for so long. “I have mine. I’m surprised you didn’t bring them with you.”

“I didn’t ask you to come here to compare pets.” The Heartless stood before the three Nobodies, taking stock of each. He watched them all with the utmost diligence, not failing to miss even a single movement on their part. Despite his own level of self-confidence, there was a risk from being practically cornered by some of the strongest Nobodies in existence, and he wasn’t about to be taken for a fool. Xemnas was more than welcome to play his games, but only so long as Ansem could play his own.

“No, you asked me to come here to report on my successes.” The Superior of the Nobodies crossed his arms in front of him, tilting his head and shoulders back as he condescendingly glared down at the Heartless. “I’ve brought _both_ of them to you.”

“You’ve given them the Gift.” Ansem nodded, looking only mildly impressed.

“And all the power that comes along with it.” The one with the eyepatch stepped forward, arrogant, cocky.

Both subordinates appeared to be everything that Xemnas had described them as, everything that from a logical perspective made them the perfect candidates to become Seekers of Darkness. They were undoubtedly powerful, completely ruthless, and above all, obeyed orders unquestioningly. The Nobody had chosen each of them only after intense scrutiny and _no one_ would have dared to insinuate that he had misjudged his decision. No one, aside from Ansem.

Now that he saw them in the flesh, it felt like there was something missing. Neither seemed to hold any true conviction to either Xemnas or his cause, but had instead resigned themselves to being used as mere puppets to further along his plans. A deep anger roiled inside Ansem to witness such passive compliance. He didn’t want another mindless subject to order about. He wanted something more.

“You said you were going to give the Gift to your own.” Xemnas’ continued to scowl at his Other, voice full of malice and contempt. “Has it been done?”

“It hasn’t.” Saix respectfully bowed his head and answered in place of the Heartless. “I saw them both when I went to find Lord Ansem earlier. Neither of them have the golden eyes.”

“And why not?” Xemnas narrowed his eyes, speaking softly with slightly furrowed brows.

“It isn’t time.” Ansem retorted, undeterred by the Nobody that other mortal men would have been much more cautious around. “It will be done, but only when they are both prepared for it. Not before.”

“The one who is stronger is more than ready.” Saix was quick to interject his own observation, emboldened in the presence of his Superior. “He actually seems to be thriving on the Darkness you’ve given him, and still you’re determined on holding him back.”

Ansem strode forward, his body glowing as Darkness gathered about him.

“You really should keep a muzzle for that pet of yours my Other. He speaks too freely of things he knows nothing of.” The Heartless made a show of being ready to set about the task of silencing the feral Nobody if Xemnas would not. However, it was no idle threat that he made. Another word out of the blue haired man’s mouth and he would have permanently eliminated the problem. Seeker of Darkness or not.

There was moment that Saix appeared to be on the verge of saying more, of letting his indignation and wounded pride overcome his better judgement. Ansem was not his Master, not exactly, but to defy the Heartless so blatantly would have been considered a slight against Xemnas himself. The Heartless and Nobody were unmistakably two sides of the same coin, and it was easy enough to detect their similarities. However, in the matter of how each of them executed their business there was obvious tension as each held different views on what was more important.

Where one put more stock into maintaining absolute dominance and control through fear and manipulation, the other valued unwavering loyalty and submission. It was no secret that if the two were to cross each other in any way, the fallout from their battle would be nothing short of catastrophic.

“Both of you, leave us.” Xemnas hissed his command as he dismissed Saix and Xigbar with a stern gaze. The two made a quick exit out of the office, being sure to shut the door behind them.

With the others gone, Ansem allowed himself a single breath to relieve the tension.

“You’ve proven your point.” He inclined his head towards the set of couches on the other end of the room, walking over to sit in them accompanied by his Nobody. “You don’t believe that I’ve contributed enough to our plans.”

“There’s nothing to prove. I believe you did that all on your own.” Xemnas moved to be seated across from him, stiff and uncomfortable. “You were supposed to deliver on your promises quite some time ago and you have nothing to show for it.”

“Everything is still according to plan. I’m utilizing an opportunity to further along some experimentation.”

“This isn’t the time.” Xemnas rebuked him, shifting just slightly in his seat.

“Now is the perfect time.” Ansem remained impassive and continued on. “We have no direct opposition at this current moment, and I have the subjects needed to test what we didn’t have the opportunity try beforehand.”

The Nobody’s scowl deepened.

“You tempt fate with your reckless antics.”

“Where would we be now if we didn’t press the boundaries of life and death itself?”

Xemnas had just opened his mouth to speak when the deafening call of the Heartless who guarded the Graveyard Castle shook the entire framework of the building down to its very foundations.

“I thought you had everything under control, my Other.” Xemnas inclined an eyebrow and asked in the most judgemental manner that he could.

“Guardian.” Ansem was immediate in his response to the call, standing abruptly to summon his most trusted of Heartless with only a quick wave of his hand. His gold eyes were fixed, never wavering, on the rising pool of Darkness he had created before him from which Guardian emerged. There was nothing other than cold calculation written across his features, precise and flawless. He was entirely in control of every last gesture, of every muscle of his body, and he expertly made use of each precious second. This was the true Ansem, Xemnas came to realize, the Heartless who could destroy entire worlds.

“I apologize but our time must be cut short.” Ansem was already gathering his coat off of a nearby armchair, hastening to put it on. “I'm afraid that one or both of my students have attempted to flee the castle.”

“Might I offer then one of my own to assist you with your escapees?” The Nobody suggested softly in a manner not meant to offer any more insult to his Other. “Despite what you may think of him, he’s masterfully skilled in the ways of seeking other creatures out. I believe his services would be invaluable in procuring what it is you have lost.”

The Heartless sniffed, giving whispered, concise instructions to the Guardian who inclined its head before disappearing back into the pool.

“If you deem him worthy in this matter, then so be it.” Traces of Darkness still clung to Ansem as he swept past his Other towards the office doors, hanging off of him like living, moving extensions of his will. “Though… if you would be so kind as to relay a message for me. Whatever damages I find on my own, I will be sure to return upon your pet seven times over.”

He left, and the Nobody knew better than to disregard the warning.

~❣~

“Damn it!” Riku cursed, striking at the exterior of the Barrier Heartless with SoulEater for third time in a futile attempt to find its weak point.

“Ansem’s not stupid.” Hope barely registered the sound of himself murmuring, and doubted the other boy could have heard him over the infernal wailing. “He would have put its weak spot somewhere near the top. Somewhere… up… high…”

His eyes wandered up to the floating Heartless symbol, and understood for the first time how not only was it a testament of their imprisonment, but also a mockery of their escape.

“I’ll bring it down.” Riku breathed raggedly, unwilling to give up even in the face of impending doom. His eyes were wide, and his shoulders bent forward, as if he was somehow trying to hold up the weight of the world itself. “I’ll find a way.”

It was inspiring, to see the older boy struggle against a rising tide. Hope figured that already somewhere in the castle Ansem was gathering forces. The man wouldn’t waste any available resource, and he would order hordes of Heartless to crawl over every expanse of open ground just to find them. The Master of Darkness wouldn’t stand for them to make a fool of him, not in any context. His fury would be swift, and it would decimate any resistance with the force of a hurricane. What little time they once thought they would have had evaporated the instant the Barrier Heartless had begun its cry.

“...you have to go.” Hope’s hands knotted into fists and he ground his teeth together, the words coming out thick and heavy.

“What?”

“You have to go.” He sounded by far more calm than he actually felt. Inside him there was something that felt like it was clawing in the base of his throat, and with each inhalation he felt the surge of ever mounting panic. Instincts were telling him that the only way he stood a chance was for him to run for all he was worth. He was on the wrong side of the wall.

“I’m not leaving you here!” Riku was yelling at him, as if that somehow would change the course of the inevitable. He was striking at the barrier with his bare fists, letting loose all of his pent up fear, anger and frustration at what was about to transpire. Hope felt as his breath caught, transfixed as he watched the older boy attempting to smash the barrier apart and not stop until he was bloody and broken.

“Riku…”

“I’m not leaving you!” His friend screamed.

In many ways Hope had come to respect him, despite his obvious flaws. There was no denying that it had been Riku who had watched over him and encouraged him ever since he had first arrived. It had been Riku that had always given him the motivation to try just a little bit harder. He had been the one to show Hope how to keep on going day after torturous day.

“There isn’t any other way.” The younger boy found himself saying, which was more than a little ironic. This would be the second time he’d be left behind, but now he was the one telling them to leave. “Ansem’s probably already on his way to find us. I’ll- I’ll find a way to distract him. Give you some more time to find a way off of this world.”

“Hope-!”

“We don’t have time for this!” Hope pleaded desperately, pulling himself up from being on his knees. He faced his friend, meeting Riku’s bright green eyes with his own fearful ones. “You need to get out of here, before it’s too late.”

He tried not to whimper. Tried not to let Riku see how very much he wished that none of this was happening, but it was. Wishes didn’t turn into reality. He’d learned that lesson many times over.

Despite how truly damning the situation was, he knew in his heart that it was the correct decision to be made. Everything, it appeared, had come around full circle and for the first time in his life he thought he could almost understand what had actually happened on the day his mother had died. She hadn’t left him because she wanted to, or because she no longer cared for him. She had sacrificed herself to protect someone else important to her. Just as Riku, in his own way, had become important to him.

He silently prayed that somehow, somewhere, Nora would be able to know that her son had finally obtained the strength he had always wanted.

“I’ll come back for you.” Riku was nearly in tears as he took a single step back. “I promise.”

“I know you will.” Hope nodded and watched as his only remaining friend ran off and into the distance.

He had never lied so completely in his life.

~❣~

Riku phased when he could, when he wasn’t entirely blinded by the building tears that he wouldn’t allow to fall because tears weren’t going to save Hope.

He’d left him. Left him alone to fend off that _monster_ of a being that had taken them both captive and now Riku was on the run, alone, and with no idea of where to go. It wasn’t fair, but then again, life hardly ever was. All he wanted to do was clear his head as he raced across the plateau on which the castle was built, and down the narrow rampway that arched its way down to the distant canyon floor below.

It had been such a long time since he had been anywhere else aside from the castle, he almost couldn’t remember what all lay outside. He’d been so weary, so dumbfounded and numb-struck that his memories of the exact day of his arrival were nothing but a blur. He remembered the brittle ground, and lifeless stones, surrounded by the jutting walls of cliffs and the ghosts whispers of breezes listlessly brushing against the barren face of the world.

Above all else though, he remembered the Keyblades. Fields and fields of unused, untapped Keyblades that spanned as far as his eye could see in every direction. Empty vessels that were left alone, forgotten, perhaps waiting for another Master to take them up and wield them once again.

He couldn’t write off the possibility of there being some sort of hidden means for him to fly out of the world. Get the hell away from everything he’d come to know since he’d been taken prisoner and with any luck make it back to the islands. He could get Sora, Kairi, even all of their friends combined that they had met on their own expeditions and come back to rescue Hope. Sora would never say no to helping someone in need. They’d recuse Hope and then go back home together, and never have anything else to do with the Keyblade Graveyard ever again.

Then there was the question of where to begin looking. Riku didn’t pause as he made his way through the deep chasms in the earth, he did remember that being a severe mistake the last time Ansem had been chasing him through the Realm of Darkness, but he also found himself having a hard time focusing on where it was that he was supposed to go. He was running aimlessly past anything and everything, relying on nothing but pure luck to finally give him just one last chance.

Luck, which had never been on his side ever since Destiny Islands, was all he had and he needed it to be more. _Hope_ needed it to be more.

He tried not to think of what Hope was doing, how he was going to cause the distraction he promised so that Riku could run as far as possible without getting caught. Somehow the younger boy had found some hidden reserve of courage that Riku had never even suspected and for that he held the older boy’s complete admiration. It took an amazing amount of courage to do what he had. For all Riku’s doubts about Hope, in the face of actual despair the boy had somehow risen above it. He’d finally found his own source of strength.

The winds picked up around him, and Riku finally slowed his run to a brisk walking speed, gasping to catch much needed breath. To his knowledge there was still nothing in the close vicinity to him, which either meant Ansem had lost his trail, or they were just about to catch up. He had come to a fork in the road, and where one path looked like it went towards the open plains far beyond, the other led only deeper in the canyons. Riku half-considered following the one that was more protected by steep cliffs, anything was better than being exposed in the plain view, and then realized that it was from within the canyon that the whipping, angry winds originated.

Something inside him urged him not to descend that way any further. He couldn’t explain it, but the feeling was there, as true in its purpose as his own beating heart and there was no possible means to ignore it. It didn’t at all concern him, he’d been taught from a young age to listen to his better instincts, which, admittedly, were the same ones he blatantly disregarded on the day he met Ansem. He couldn’t see what all lay ahead between the cliff faces, but he got an incredible sense that nothing good awaited him within. 

He shook his head, clearing his doubts, and without any further thought, turned instead towards the opposite way, the one that led towards the Keyblade Fields.

It didn’t take too long to reach the fringes of the massive collection of dead Keyblades, the ones that were quite literally strewn about the ground like discarded sticks. Even as Riku quickly made his way towards the more concentrated areas of the fields, he picked his way carefully around each of the littered Keyblades, making an effort not to disturb their final resting place. He couldn’t bring himself to dishonor the memories of warriors who had long since fallen, despite the fact that he may never have known who they were or why they had fallen. 

The same oppressive feeling of solemn desolation that Riku had felt when he first arrived hung like a shroud in the air about him. He tried to disregard it. Tried to push past the prevailing recognition that none of this was supposed to happen. Keyblades weren’t supposed to be stuck in the ground like undignified hunks of metal. Keyblades were meant to serve their Masters until the end, and remain with them even in death. The Keyblade Fields were a horror that should never have come to pass.

A crack and a hiss sounded off behind him, and Riku wildly leapt back, taken by surprise.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t go down the other way earlier. The storms in there have torn whole towns down to rubble.”

SoulEater was in his hand before he even had to think it, pointed towards the chest of the blue haired man. He was standing in front of Riku, the midst of the Keyblades, his face aloof, all for the slight raised corner of his lip that betrayed his bloodthirsty nature. It was strange, but for an instant Riku caught the scent of musk and ash from him. The exact same scent Ansem had.

“You’re the one from earlier.” Riku’s eyes narrowed as he slowly took a few steps away to gain some space in between them.

“Saix.” The man introduced himself, bowing somehow stiffly. “I serve my Master, the Superior of the Organization. But then, I don’t suppose you’d know anything about us. I doubt your Master is inclined to tell you very much.”

“He’s not my Master!” Green eyes blazed from beneath silver bangs. Riku felt hot anger fuel his actions at the title that Saix had so casually given to Ansem. “And you’d better get out of my way or I’ll leave your corpse here to rot with all the rest of this.”

“I’m afraid that’s simply not what is going to happen. I’ve been given very specific instructions to bring you back to the castle alive, and unharmed if you’d believe it. Though, if you were to ask me,” The corner of Saix’s lips curled in a unnaturally cruel grin. “a good thrashing might actually curb that disrespectful attitude of yours.”

“I’ve already had enough lessons in this place to last me a lifetime.” Riku snarled, dropping SoulEater down slowly and discreetly, replacing it into his left hand.

“Have you?” Saix growled in reply. “Then that would explain why you clearly have no idea exactly how deep your transgressions this day go.”

“What do you mean by that?” Riku’s dominant hand inched out past him at a snail’s pace, his eyes glued to his opponent and watched to see if the man was at all aware of the boy’s intentions.

“I mean, you couldn’t have chosen a worse time to try and escape.”

“Because _you’re_ here?”

“Because of who came here with me.” Saix tilted his head back, hissing each word between his irregularly long fangs. “Because you made your Master look weak in front of him, and neither of them have any tolerance for weakness. You made a very costly mistake today, _filth_. One that you will pay for quite dearly, I’m sure.”

Riku never believed in relying on anything other than his own might to get him out of any situation, but the reality was that he had run out of options. He dove, his right hand already reaching for the first Keyblade he could grip, hoping against all hope that it would accept him as its own. It didn’t matter if it was the Light or the Dark that answered his call, so long as the power of a Keyblade could be his.

For a second it held, cool metal in his palm and he yank it firmly from its place buried in the ground, holding his breath in uneasy anticipation. Saix stood entirely still along with him, gold eyes widening in shock as he watched what was transpiring. 

Riku waited, breath hitched, and tried to feel even a hint of the power that he remembered from his battle with Sora in Hollow Bastion. He waited for the curling spark that signified a summoning that would tingle all the way up his arm, melding with him body and soul. Seconds passed, and there was nothing. There was no telltale glimmer of energy that emanated from it, and as soon as Riku lifted it further from the ground, the Keyblade disintegrated into nothing but dust, fluttering back to the earth.

He reached for another, grabbing, pulling, and watched as it too became dust.

“Please… _Please_ …” He whispered, grinding his teeth together against hot tears of rage. He was about to go for a third when Saix’s claymore tore an enormous metal gash through the remaining Keyblades. Riku pulled his arm back reflexively, trembling with a sense of foreboding.

“All of these are dead.” Saix walked forward calmly, hand outstretched to retrieve his thrown weapon. “No one can summon them anymore.”

“Please.” Riku plead out loud to something he knew couldn’t hear him, taking the handle of a Keyblade that hadn’t been destroyed by the attack. He held it firmly, trying to calm his panicked nerves because there was no way any Keyblade would take him if it knew how weak he truly was. “I used to be a Wielder once. All I’m asking for is just a chance. I… have to get out of here. And this is the only way I can. Please… Lend me your power.”

Saix swung the claymore sideways, and Riku ducked to avoid the edge that would have otherwise smashed in his skull. Every Keyblade that was unfortunate enough to be in its path dissolved, leaving the boy open, crouched in the middle of the wreckage ill-prepared for a counter attack. He pivoted, swinging SoulEater up with his left in an attempt to stab the man in his unprotected side. Saix narrowly backed away just out of reach, knocking SoulEater back with one smooth motion.

“All this time training, and this is all you have to offer?” He taunted, his claymore once again at the ready for another vicious strike. Something within the man made his whole body shudder, his hair fraying as he cast off any last shred of restraint that was left. What remained was a creature, fully devoted to either destroying or to being destroyed.

Riku pulled back his shoulders as he shifted his left leg forward, replacing his weapon back into his right hand and raising SoulEater high. He breathed deep and exhaled evenly as he had been taught, because working oneself up before a fight never did anyone any good. His thoughts calmed, as they always had whenever he went into a battle. No matter the circumstances, fighting had always been what he lived for.

It was what he did best.

A single shot rang out through the fields, cracking like thunder through the rising winds off the battle-torn ground. Riku collapsed face first into the dirt, a hole torn through the flesh just above his hip. His vision turned to black and he wheezed as the first onslaught of pain shot through him. He lost all ability to move of his own accord. All he could do was lie on the ground, hurt, bleeding, and covered in the dust of the Keyblades both he and Saix had destroyed.

“Imbecile.” Saix whirled around in the direction of the shooter. “He was _mine_ to retrieve.”

“What can I say?” Xigbar shrugged nonchalantly, lowering his gun as he strutted, for lack of better term, to join his fellow Nobody. “I couldn’t pass up such a clear shot.”

~❣~

The pain was nauseating and Riku felt every bit of it even as he slid in and out of consciousness.

The first thing he recognized other than the pain was the searing brightness of harsh lights all about him. He winced, reflexively trying to distance himself away from them, to sink back into the peaceful embrace of the void.

“What you did today will have lasting consequences.” Ansem’s voice sounded mellow but yet echoed through the boy’s aching skull. “I warned you, or did you disregard that as well?”

“I didn’t…” Riku winced and found that speaking felt the same as if he was ripping his tender consciousness to ribbons. “I… remember.”

“Yet still you chose to ignore it.”

The boy’s vision cleared enough for him the see the Heartless, sitting in a white armchair with his legs and arms folded. He tried to shrink away, and found himself seated already with his back against a wall. His arms were shackled together to a hook high above his head, the metal clinking with any little movement that he made. Riku remained still and swallowed hard, knowing that he was well and truly caught.

“You should be grateful.” Ansem continued, expressionless. “If that shot had missed and hit anything vital you’d certainly be dead right now. The wound will heal, in time, and I doubt it will hinder any of your movements after you’ve recovered.”

Shot. He remembered that he’d been shot. Riku frowned and wondered who had been the one who had fired it.

“Where’s Hope?” He asked, his voice hoarse and scratchy from lack of water and inhaling too much dry air from outside the castle.

“Hope is no longer your concern.” Ansem stood, taking each step closer to his captive at his own leisure. He almost swayed as he walked, drawing out each step to a rhythm that only he knew. “Since I obviously cannot trust the two of you in each other’s company, neither of you will see each other without my express permission and my supervision.”

“Hope didn’t have anyth-”

“Do you know what he did?” Ansem caught Riku’s head by top the portion of his hair, harshly yanking the boy as far away from the wall as the chains would allow. Riku gasped, the links rattling and his whole body tensed in growing fear. It hurt immensely to be moved, despite how carefully his side had been tended to most likely by the Heartless himself.

“He chased me down.” Ansem’s face was almost flush his with own. “He tried to fight me, all on his own. Even you wouldn’t have been as idiotic as to attempt that, but he did. Who do you think gave him that idea?”

Riku bit back a whimper, hissing and heaving through gritted teeth as he glared down the Heartless. The pain in his side worsened as every part of him froze. Despite this, he refused to let Ansem see his dread. He wouldn’t give the older man the satisfaction of knowing just how much it hurt. 

A faint scream echoed from outside the open doorway, coming from far down the hall beyond.

“Hope…!”

“Consequences,” Ansem gripped the side of Riku’s neck so hard the boy feared he was going to dig his fingers straight into his throat. He struggled then, but the Heartless effectively pinned him, using his size and strength to hold him immobile. “for what you have done, and what you were going to do.”

“Leave…” Riku wheezed, spots dancing on the edges of his vision. “Hope... out of this…”

“ _This_ is an extension of my will.” Ansem held a bright yellow shard of a stone Riku didn’t recognize right up to his face to ensure that he saw it. “You will do _nothing_ outside of it.”

The man didn’t give Riku any chance to prepare as he worked the shard, edge first, into the side of the boy’s neck.

Riku shrieked, felt as the stone pushed its way through skin, into muscle and tissue until it was nestled all the way into him. It pulsated, radiating hot streaks of pain as it reacted to an unspoken command given by the Heartless. He screamed as something akin to an electrical surge flowed out of it and spread along into him. Every part of him spasmed and jerked uncontrollably, writhing in an effort to escape the torture he had absolutely no control over. Ansem unlocked his chains, unaffected by the power that ran its course inside Riku’s body.

The boy twisted, crying out as the pain continued to run rampant through him for what felt like a lifetime. His voice screeched in agony as it burned its way from his torso and spread into his arms and legs, corroding his senses until he saw and felt nothing else. Where Darkness felt like concentrated ice, this was surging liquid heat that he was sure would melt him from the inside out. He suffered, heaving and sweating and thrashing as it destroyed any self control.

Ansem carried him out of the lab, holding him firmly as the boy writhed. Riku momentarily tried to stop his hands from shaking as he pressed them to the skin over where the stone had been inserted. He felt for the wound, gasping, prepared to dig the intruding shard out with his bare hands if he had to, but there was nothing but smooth skin. Inside his neck he could feel it, distinctly, but his fingers couldn’t find even a trace. It was as if it had dissolved, the only thing remaining was a tingling sensation and the final bursts of searing nerves.

The Heartless carried him down deep into the castle basement, finally depositing him in a heap onto the floor inside of a windowless cell. Riku groaned deeply and curled, fearing that his side had been reopened all over again from the fall. The bandages that had been wrapped around his middle didn’t immediately seem to be soaked with blood and the boy fearfully hoped that it would remain that way. He didn’t need more pain to add to what he already had.

“I’ve been forced to utilize this cell before, and the results afterward were significantly improved. We will see how long it takes you to reach the same.” The Heartless knelt in front of him, brushing Riku’s bangs out of his face as he panted from the torture. “You will stay here, until such a time as I deem you’re prepared to obey as you are expected to.”

Ansem stood, closing the door slowly.

“Ansem-!” Riku choked, spasming, burying his tears down and into the stone floor. “Please… Don’t hurt Hope….”

“You should have thought of that before leaving him.”

The door slammed shut, locked, and Riku was left alone with only his thoughts and dreams in still, absolute darkness.

~❣~

_Sora was never one to be quiet for very long, but he was as he stood in the midst of the vacant darkness. He was just out of reach and somehow it made his heart clench inside him. It made him ache to know that he couldn’t be close to the one person that meant the worlds to him. That Sora could turn a cold shoulder as if their friendship didn’t matter in the slightest anymore. His best friend walked away from him, never bothering to look back._

_“Sora…” He croaked, eyes welling with tears, trying to hold the pieces of himself together that kept falling apart over and over again. Every step his friend took was another stab into his already broken heart. “Sora I’m lost.”_

_Silence._

_“I’m sorry.” He broke down into staggered sobs, staring at the retreating back of his once best friend. “I’m sorry about everything I said before. I… I didn’t mean it. I just want to come home. Please… Sora… Can we go home?”_

_Silence._

_Sora continued to walk away from him._

_“Please!” He cried out, fresh tears running down his face. He collapsed, shivering, heavy with an unbearable burden of guilt and shame. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. All of this… Ansem’s taken everything from me and…”_

_His friend stopped, his head barely turned, the faintest glimmer of blue eyes shone against the stark blackness._

_“I deserve this… don’t I?” The question lingered between them, oppressive and condemning._

_Sora retreated into the nothingness._

_“Tell me I deserve this!” He wailed, his body wracked with deep shudders as he wept but there was no one left but him. No one listened to the broken boy from the island who once spent a whole summer building a raft. No one listened to the forgotten youth who used to spend entire nights just watching the stars. He wept until there were no tears left to spill, so numb that it robbed him of the ability to feel anything else._

_“I deserve to be lost.”_

~❣~


	7. Division

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was writing this chapter there was a prevalent theme song that I listened to pretty much on repeat for a good majority of the time. If you, dear reader, would like to listen to it while reading this chapter, I highly suggest listening to "Light of the Seven" by Ramin Djawadi (it's from the Season 6 Soundtrack of Game of Thrones). In my personal opinion it perfectly encompasses, in one way or another, the range of emotions I was trying to portray between all the characters involved. You by no means have to, it was just something I thought might enhance your reading experience.
> 
> Thanks to all the people who have supported this fic, and also to Uturuncu for their wonderful comment! I don't think I can ever thank everyone enough.

Sora never again visited Riku while he remained in the darkness, but Ansem did.

Every day Ansem would open the door to his otherwise pitch-black cell, blinding him even with the low lighting of a singular candle to ask him only one question. A single question that the boy heard clearly during his waking hours even when he was alone.

“Will you submit?”

Whether it was to Darkness or to him, Ansem never specified, but in truth it didn’t matter. Ansem wanted him to submit, and Riku found that he was having less of a choice in the matter than he had once thought. The solitude from being locked away was destroying his rationality, and the slow degradation of his senses was enough to make him wonder if he had finally, truly, gone insane.

He saw nothing in the blackness. He heard nothing other than his own breaths and occasional shuffle of the Heartless posted as guards outside his cell door. However, he felt everything. There were cracks, deep cracks lining almost every available surface of his cell. They were scattered into the floor, along the walls, even as high up as he dared to reach and they were deep. So deep that no animal or creature could have possibly made them. They were too random, too chaotic for that. Still, something living had carved out its mark within Riku’s cell, marring the texture of the stones like interwoven scars.

He liked to imagine that whoever had been in the cell beforehand had been overwhelmingly, inconceivably angry. He imagined all of their rage, the frustration and resentment that had built up so much that the only way to expel it was to decimate whatever was available by any means possible. For a while he tried to count the gashes, running his hands along the sharp edges of the crags that if he put any pressure on would cut through skin like paper, but without the aide of his sight it was a pointless endeavor.

Each day he counted out a new mark and each day Ansem asked him the same question.

“Will you submit?”

The memory of Sora faded. Without his best friend coming to visit him in his dreams, Riku found it increasingly difficult to remember even the smallest of details. He spent hours trying to recall the sound of Sora’s voice, the ghosts of fingertips brushing against his forehead and scalp while he napped in the secret place nestled in the tree roots, the exact color of his eyes. All that came to Riku was blank, devoid of what had once made Sora the pinnacle of his childhood. There was nothing, because that was the only thing the future held for him.

Nothing.

He screamed when the silence became too oppressive. He bashed hands against the door, the walls, seeking out Ansem’s attention because that was better than being left so entirely alone. If there had been anything other that he could have used aside from his own body he would have, but there was no such luxury. No one answered his screams that echoed until there was little voice left in him and his hands were often punished so badly that he couldn’t bear to move them for some time afterwards.

The first time Riku agreed to submit, Ansem merely snickered and locked the door once more.

It took three more tries, with the boy prostrate, begging on the floor to convince him.

“Why should I trust you?” Ansem’s golden eyes gleamed from behind the candle as he stood imposing and resolute in the doorway.

“I swear…” Riku swallowed hard, wanting to weep but knew that tears would serve no purpose in front of the Master of Darkness. He shivered instead, fingers clawing their way into the broken stone. “I will do whatever you ask. I made a promise to you before and I kept it. I won’t disobey you again.”

Strong hands pulled him up, effortless, and somehow terrifying. Ansem held him still as if he weighed no more than air, a puppeteer who only had to tug on a select few strings to will the boy’s body to do whatever the older man desired. The Heartless let his hands roam, caressing Riku’s face, his neck, traveling down and unwrapping filth ladened bandages to trace the healing scar of where he’d been shot. Riku didn’t stop him, didn’t resist, but still flinched just before any contact was made with his skin.

Ansem could take whatever he wanted. Ansem _would_ take it either way, and there was no strength left in the boy to put on any brave facade. 

“We will let time show us the sincerity of your words.” The Heartless whispered, teeth grazing the edges of Riku’s ear in such a way that it lit an electrical surge throughout his nerves. The boy shuddered and held back a choke of repulsion. He hated Ansem for what he had done. Hated himself more and the fact that he was once again too weak to do anything other than give in to the older man’s inclinations. Despite everything he’d accomplished he was still no more than a desperate boy from the islands who pretended to be something more, and it absolutely disgusted him.

Heartless guided Riku back towards Ansem’s chambers and their Master’s hand refused to leave the back of his neck the entire way. There was no sign of Hope in any part of the castle through which they traveled, which only worried him all the more. What horrors the other boy was forced to endure Riku didn't want to even begin to imagine. It was obvious that Ansem held no particular sentiment or admiration for his fellow prisoner, and as such, the man very well could have dealt out even crueler punishment without any reservation. For all Riku knew, Hope could have suffered more than he had at the hands of the Heartless, and his friend would have been entirely alone during it all.

He hadn’t wanted for Hope to suffer. Hadn’t wanted to leave him behind in the hands of a madman, but what other choice had he been given?

Riku tentatively halted before the door to Ansem’s room and felt the grip on his neck tighten slightly.

“To the bath, pet.” Ansem purred, leading him inward with a forceful push of his arm and towards another door in the direction that he desired. “You’ve been locked away for far too long.”

Several Shadow Heartless scurried out of the bathroom, claws clicking on the hard floor as they scrambled to get out of the way of the two humans. Steam followed in their wake, provided by a bath that had only recently been drawn given their Master’s order. Despite Riku’s growing apprehension, the smell of the clean water was more than welcoming as well as the prospect of washing away the dirt and filth off his skin. He stopped just in front of the prepared tub, eyes roaming over the smooth surface of the water that offered comfort in a way he hadn’t known for a long time.

He didn’t need to be told to remove his clothing. Riku had already done it enough times before in front of Ansem that it shouldn’t have caused him to feel any shame, but somehow it still did. Ansem’s grip on his neck released, and Riku found that his hands still trembled as he pulled away the tattered remains of his shirt, torn from time, wear, and multiple battles. The rest of his clothes came off of him as well, damaged and dirty in enough ways that they were most likely better off never being used again. In any other context he would have been fine with that, if they weren’t the last things he held as memory of the world he had come from.

“Don’t be shy.” Ansem ushered him into the water, unphased in the slightest by his captive’s nudity. “I made sure it would still be warm for you.”

Which was the truth, Riku realized as he sank into the embracing heat. His eyes slipped closed and he exhaled softly, reveling in the feeling of something other than the cold, unforgiving stone he had grown so accustomed to. It was a simple perfection that he was more than happy to lose himself in. If anything, it made him want to forget the entire event in the cell had ever happened. To forget that it had been his own carelessness, his own irrationality that had caused him so much turmoil and grief. Not just him, but to Hope as well.

Everything faded into the dark as his mind went silent from all other thoughts, allowing him a brief but greatly treasured moment of tranquility. He relaxed, slowly, muscles unwinding as his senses dulled down to a singular pinprick of consciousness.

Someone was caressing his hair. Mere ghost touches as fingers combed through his silver bangs and touched his scalp so lightly he wasn’t even sure it had happened.

It was pleasant. It was… nice. It was...

“Ansem!” He gasped, hands slipping on the outside ring of the tub as he jerked himself up to move away all too quickly.

“Stay still.” Ansem’s face pulled down into a scowl, his hand twining in the strands of the boy’s fine hair to hold him in place. The older man was hovering over the edge, unconcerned by how much water was thrown onto him as Riku thrashed about. The boy yelled, splashing and sputtering and yet gaining no distance to put between them. The stone in his neck pulsed, a silent, strong warning that if he should continue his struggles only pain would come of it.

“Please don’t...” Riku whimpered, tense as he sunk back into the water, all too aware of the control Ansem had with just a stone and a handful of his hair. He didn’t want to feel the onslaught of pain, not again. It had been a present threat all throughout his time in the cell, something that had manifested on more than one occasion, seemingly at Ansem’s whims and it hurt every time just as badly as the first. It had been agonizing. It had been undefiable.

“Then don’t give me reason to.” Hard gold eyes met his own as Ansem’s hands worked out the tangles that had formed at the silver ends. The older man’s tone softened and became just as gentle the fingers that deftly worked the knots. “Your hair has gotten so long since you first came here. I must admit, I’ve grown rather fond of it.”

Riku hadn’t realized, hadn’t once bothered to try to piece together just how much time had passed since he had been at Hollow Bastion. It felt like lifetimes, like centuries beforehand, but the reality had to have been much shorter. It may have been a year, maybe two if Riku judged it right by the statement Ansem had just made about him. The older man had no reason to lie about the duration of Riku’s stay at the castle.

Which meant that years had passed and still no one had found him.

He settled back into the water, still on edge with Ansem’s close proximity and saw his reflection rippling along the surface. It was impossible not to notice that his face looked leaner, smoother, older. He’d grown, and still he looked so fragile, so broken, so worn.

“H-how long… was I in that cell?” Riku asked, wincing as the man worked at a particularly large knot of hair.

“Too long.” Was Ansem’s only reply, fingers leaving his head and deftly dipping down along his spine to rest at the small of his back. They traced circles along his skin, pressing against contracting muscles as Riku tried his best not to tense up. “Your predecessor never lasted nearly as long as you did. Though, to his credit, he did end up in there much more often.”

“Did he ever try to escape?”

“No. He never was _that_ foolish, but he did have a rather nasty temperament on occasion. I found that some time alone in the dark quelled that rather quickly.”

Ansem’s hands never went lower, but his lips however kissed their way up from the base of his neck all the way to the side of his face. Riku clenched his fists, tried to stabilize his erratic breathing and told himself _not_ to move away. He felt contempt at the man who treated him as kindly as a lover after having just tortured and thrown him into isolation without so much as a second thought. Ansem clearly felt no remorse at his suffering. The Heartless only cared because the boy’s punishment meant less time for him to do what the older man wanted.

Riku held himself back from sniveling, swallowed it, and resolved to let Ansem do whatever he wanted for the time being. When he could, Riku would find out just what had happened to Hope, and, if the fates would be so kind, he’d end this tragedy once and for all.

~❣~

Ansem was good on his word. He never once allowed the prisoners to be in the same room at the same time, even when they were training. The first time Riku saw Hope after their failed escape attempt felt like an eternity later, when Ansem summoned them into his office one evening just at the brink of dusk.

Riku had been given no choice but to change his attire, and at Ansem’s behest he had been more or less coerced into an outfit that fit the older man's preferences much more than his own. What he found himself wearing may have been the former garbs of another acolyte, from a time before when the Graveyard Castle had been less of a coffin and more of a living, functioning fortress. It was a simple enough outfit, shirt and pants accented with a few decorative belts and buckles that made it seem less plain. Still, it was too constricting for Riku’s tastes. Gave Ansem too much insight into the shape and definition of his body way too easily.

Hope was already there in office, wrapped in thick clothing all the way up his neck to his jawline and standing as close to the fireplace as he dared to be without being directly disrespectful to the Heartless Master. His head was down, bangs shrouding his face from the rest of the world. If Riku hadn’t been positive that he could see the slight movement from his friend’s breathing, he would have taken him at least for being asleep.

It took a force of will for Riku to not go over to him and demand to know what terrible things had been done while he had been locked away. More importantly though, he needed to know that Hope was still fighting to survive. They had both endured Ansem's anger, which by no means was an easy feat, and regardless of that Hope seemed to have weathered the brunt of it. Not many could say they had committed as terrible a grievance against the Heartless as they had and still lived to speak of it. It was nothing short of a miracle, and Riku needed to know that Hope still had even some strength left inside him.

“I have a proposal for the both of you. One that I believe will work in your favors if you prove yourselves worthy enough.” Ansem sat in a way that he could easily see his two captives, fingers strumming on the top part of his thigh.

“What do you want us to do?” Riku asked, his gaze never wandering too far from his silent friend. He was careful not to draw much attention to the anxiety he felt on Hope’s personal state of being.

“I would like to offer you, personally, a chance at redemption which would allow Hope here to regain his freedom.” Ansem waved his hand towards Riku and spoke plainly, his face betraying no sarcasm or ill-intent.

“What?” Riku gasped and shook his head in complete disbelief. “After all this time, you want to... let Hope go?”

“It's a lie…” Hope's left hand clenched tightly at Ansem’s words, a sharp hiss of anger cutting through the air like a blade. He heaved, raising his head just barely enough to show the lower portion of his face. “There’s… There's no way after everything you've done to us, to _me_ , that you’d just let either of us just walk away from here.”

“But that is exactly what I’m saying.” Ansem responded, barely nodding his head.

“ _Why_?”

“I’m prioritizing.” The man narrowed his eyes into mere slits of golden malevolence. “You were an experiment Hope, and a failed one at that. I have no room in this castle for your kind of… fragility.”

Hope defiantly lifted his head, revealing the Darkness that had turned his flesh black all the way up his neck, creeping across his face and closing in around his eyes.

“Hope…” Riku breathed, the blood in his veins stilled at the sight of the plague that riddled his friend’s body. “What did he- What did he _do_ to you?!”

“Shut up.” Hope snapped and only slightly turned his face to look back at him.

“What did he _DO_?!”

“Shut up!” Hope howled. “There’s no point in me leaving this place! I’m as good as dead anyway!”

“But you’re not dead!” Riku scrambled towards his friend and was stopped dead a few paces short. He grimaced, knees buckling from under him, the stone in his neck flourishing with searing heat.

“None of that.” Ansem warned, flicking his hand and causing the stone to flare with a final pulse of internal fire.

“You… Ha-!” Riku cried out, his body sweating and churning with the onslaught of pain. He was on his hands and knees, helplessly knelt before Hope’s unmoving form. He heaved, trying to overcome the dreaded pain. “You're... not dead!”

“I might as well be.” The younger boy answered him stoically and made no further effort to even acknowledge his presence.

“Don't say that-!”

“You know it's true!”

“What happened to you!?” Riku choked while he ground each of his words out. “What did he do to you to make you like this!?”

“What happened…? You're asking what happened to me? _HE_ happened!!” Hope shrieked as he pointed a finger directly at Ansem’s chest. “He said since I had enough strength to try and fight him then I must be strong enough to have more Darkness inside me! He forced- He forced-!!”

The boy stopped, hands clamped over his mouth before the black liquid that had welled up while he was speaking went spewing out all over him. The act was enough to staunch a good majority of it, though some still managed to make its way through his fingers and dripped down onto his scarf. Hope whimpered, eyes wide and dilated in pure, unfiltered terror.

“Enough outbursts.” The Heartless ordered, brushing a few strands of stray white hair from his face and voice lowered with every bit of his unchallenged authority. “As Hope was saying, I forced him to intake a significant amount more Darkness than he ever did previously. In my… discontent… over what had transpired I may have increased the dosage by triple.”

“You gave him a death sentence!” Riku roared at the man, shuddering at the thought of having to withstand so much Darkness at one time. He doubted that even he, accustomed to Darkness as he was, could have withstood that much.

“It's only a death sentence so long as he refuses to accept that which already lurks within his own heart. If he had even a fraction of your… submissiveness, he'd be much better off by far.”

Riku felt his breath run short.

“Ansem…”

“What is he talking about?” Hope asked, instantaneously giving all of his attention to the conversation happening without him while he wiped away a trail of black liquid from the corner of his mouth. “What does he mean by ‘submissiveness’?”

“Ansem… You promised…” Riku shook, nearly crawling towards the older man. His vision blurred from sheer panic. “You promised!”

“Which only held if you had continued to fulfill your end of the bargain.” Ansem knelt down in front of him, cupping his face in between the palms of his hands. “Which, if I'm not mistaken, you haven't.”

“I did!” Riku cried out as he reared back away from the Heartless’ touch. “I did everything you asked.”

“ _Every_ night.” Ansem gently reminded him. “You promised every night that you would be with me. That hasn't been the case as of late.”

“You locked me away!”

“What the fuck is he talking about?!” Hope yelled across from them, clearly alarmed and angry from continuing to be ignored.

“Don't-” Riku whispered, fully facing the older man and harshly gripping into the fabric of his coat collar. His knuckles turned white as he begged with brilliant green eyes, desperately searching for anything that would change the Heartless’ mind. “Ansem… please. You've won. You don't have to do this.”

For a second Riku dared to believe he'd persuaded him. He watched as golden eyes softened and lips pressed a kiss firmly into the boy’s temple before the older man spoke.

“I'm afraid Hope, that Riku didn't want me telling you this, but he's been… entertaining me in bed for quite some time now.” Ansem purred, reaching around to grasp at Riku’s neck in a solid display of dominance. He turned the boy around so that the prisoners were facing each other, leaving Riku with nowhere to hide. “He did so in an attempt to keep you safe here. Which, I'm sure some would have considered admirable, if it hadn't been entirely for nothing.”

“He-… He's been… What-…?” Hope stammered, shocked. “You've…”

Ansem's hand roamed lower, underneath fabric and down the front of Riku’s chest.

“Up until recently he was fairly diligent.” The man looked nothing short of predatory, expounding just enough to keep Hope’s curiosity. “He was even willing to participate on most occasions. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he actually enjoyed it a good portion of it.”

It hurt beyond anything else for Riku to see as realization crossed over Hope’s face. The thoughts flickered across his features in waves from questions to more questions, that ultimately followed into growing, overwhelming detest. Riku could see it all, could see Hope finally piecing together the reasons the island boy didn't ever like his skin being touched. Why he was never around at night. Why he had been so desperate to escape, and it destroyed him down to the core of his entirety. There was nothing to change or deny any of it, and all Riku found himself able to do was bow his head in immense, debilitating shame.

“Riku…?” Hope asked in a small voice, fingers tangled into the corners of his scarf. “It's not true… is it…? It can't be…”

“Hope I didn’t have a choice.” Was all that Riku struggled to somehow say.

“What do you mean you didn’t have a choice?”

“I made a deal so that you could be safe-”

“Safe!?” Hope spat, seething with anger and squaring off his shoulders as he removed the scarf that hid the jet black skin that had tainted his entire neck. “You call this being safe!?”

“You were safe!” Riku trembled, too engulfed in his own misery to notice the circles Ansem was tracing along his shoulders during their exchange. “I made sure that as long as his attention was on me, he never put any extra pressure on you. You didn't have to suffer the things I did because of what he made me do. I… I…”

“Shut up!”

“Hope…” The older boy blanched, caught off guard by the sheer revulsion in his friend’s voice.

“You're not a hero here!” Hope was screaming at him, and every word cut into Riku like a knife. “How is what you did in any way heroic!? You've been telling me this whole time to not give up! You told me not to give into the Darkness! You said we were going to make it out of here while at the same time you've been fucking the person who brought us here in the first place!!”

“It wasn't like that…”

“Then tell me what it was like!”

“I can't-” Riku stopped himself from saying more. All he wanted to do was run but there wasn’t anywhere to go. Besides that, no matter how far away he could have gone, he never would have escaped the bitter betrayal written into Hope’s grey eyes. “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry for what?!” Hope bellowed, tears running rivers off the younger boy’s red and flustered face. “For being too scared to tell me exactly what was going on? For being the biggest fucking hypocrite of all time? For making me think you actually cared about someone other than yourself?!”

“I cared.” Riku's voice was barely above a whisper. “I looked out for you because I didn't want anything bad to happen to you. I didn't want to leave you behind.”

“But you _did_!! You did and what's worse is that you knew who you were leaving me behind with! You knew and it didn't stop you. Ansem wasn't the one to give me a death sentence here Riku.” Hope breathed out quickly, livid beyond any other time in his life. “You were.”

There was silence, and the words sunk straight into Riku like poison.

He cowered, unable to feel anything both externally or within. There was only the numbness, the aching hollow in his body that threatened to steal the very life right out of him. He curled towards the floor and knew Hope had been right. Hope had been right about everything, about who he really was. He was no hero. He had never even been a real friend.

“I’m sorry. I lied… I-... didn't do it because I didn't care…” Riku continued to stare downward, too ashamed to look directly into the other boy’s eyes.

“Stop it.” Hope sneered down at him, still filled with burning rage. “You're being fucking pathetic and it’s not going to change anything. You want to try and make things right? Then take Ansem up on his offer and get me the fuck out of here so I never have to see you or your… _partner_ … ever again!”

Ansem raised a brow and cast an interested look at Riku.

“What will you do?”

“...If… If that's what Hope wants… I”ll do it...” Riku nodded slowly, trembling with each gesture.

Hope turned to stalk out of the office.

“I suppose I should thank you.” The younger boy snarled, stopping just at the doorway. “I didn't think there would ever be anyone else who could hurt me after my mother died. Seems that everything about this place is out to prove me wrong.”

~❣~

The conditions of Hope’s release were simple enough.

In order for him to regain his freedom Riku would be put through a combative trial to further prove his loyalty and devotion to a cause that he had fought against for so long. Ansem wanted to be absolutely certain that his student would never turn against the Darkness again, no matter what circumstances were to arise in the future. It was to be the proof that Riku had truly not only attained, but also mastered that which Ansem had spent so long drilling into him day after day. If somehow he could use every ability that he had once had in Hollow Bastion with absolute proficiency, then, and _only_ then, would Hope be allowed to leave the Graveyard Castle.

Ansem had promised that there was no world that Hope wouldn’t be transported to if the boy so wished it. Granted, of course, that it was still a world that existed and hadn’t fallen into Darkness. Whatever thoughts Hope had about the matter he kept to himself, be it from indecision or his lack of trust in Riku to actually win, there was no real way to tell.

The younger boy had refused to be near the other two residents of the castle from the night in the office onward. With no more incentive for him to spend grueling hours in the training hall practicing to control the very thing that was eating him alive, Riku only guessed that his former companion had instead opted to remain unbothered by anyone in the confinement of his own room. He hated to imagine that Hope spent his days tormented, hungry, or isolated, but all of that was now outside of Riku’s control. The only thing he wished for, no matter how unattainable it seemed, was for but one more chance to speak to Hope, not to make any excuse but simply to apologize for how badly he had hurt his last remaining friend.

However, the opportunity never came before the set day of the trial.

Ansem had arranged for all three of them to be in the training hall in the afternoon and there was to be no debate on the matter. He made it clear that Hope would have no choice but to bear witness to either Riku’s success or his failure. Whatever his fate was to be, it would be decided then and there.

“Do you believe you’re prepared?” Ansem whispered gently into his prized student’s ear as his hands slid up along Riku’s sides in full view of Hope. “There’s no point to this exercise if you already doubt your capabilities.”

“Hope already made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want to be here anymore. I’ll win, so he can leave and rid himself of all the Darkness you’ve been giving him.” Riku replied harshly and shrugged Ansem away so that he could walk to the middle of the hall. The older man had become all the more open ever since Hope had found out about the intimacies of their relationship, and seemed to no longer have any reservations with letting the youngest of them see his lewd advances. It was something that Riku wished he could stop if he had thought it possible.

If there had been any lesson for him to learn however from the Graveyard Castle, it was that there were some things that would always be out of his control.

Instead, he tried to focus himself on the task at hand, reassuring himself that the trial Ansem was about to give was just another set of exercises. One more hurdle that he had to overcome for someone else's sake, even if Hope still hated him. He didn't doubt his abilities, but neither could he anticipate what Ansem’s hidden motives were. Above all else, Riku needed to be focused, prepared for whatever the Heartless decided to throw his way.

“Very well then.” Ansem nodded, taking his place at the side of the training hall to stand beside a sullen, brooding Hope. The man crossed his arms and lifted his head, barely concealing a bemused smirk. “This is the gauntlet that you must face, Riku. Defeat all the enemies that appear before you by any means necessary. Demonstrate to me that you have both accepted and can correctly wield the Darkness that lies within you. The Darkness _I_ alone have given to you. If you should somehow manage to impress this upon me, then I will know for certain that I no longer have any need of Hope, and as such, he can be set free.”

Riku ventured one last glance at Hope, in the off chance that he would be offered some sort of silent encouragement. The younger boy was instead staring off in another direction, visibly shivering from head to toe. It solidified for the older boy that there would be no other opportunity such as this one for Hope to be given a chance to maybe return to a normal life. It would either be now or never.

A growl from underneath Riku snapped his attention back to where he was standing with just enough time to see a glowing Guardian rising from the Darkness that had gathered on the floor.

“You…” He hissed, summoning SoulEater forth and into his hand. “Of course he wants me to fight you.”

The Guardian emitted a noise that Riku could only determine was a strange, guttural form of a laugh.

He didn’t let the noise bother him but instead gathered himself and knew that defeating a creature such as it was only a matter of perceptiveness and his ability to react. The Guardian was strong, there was no doubt about that, but his weaknesses were just as great. It had been created with the design of working in tandem with another host offering it specific directions. Riku only had to be faster than the creature fighting on its own, and as long he was poised to deliver the blow that was needed to bring the monstrous beast down there was little doubt he could beat it.

“Begin.” Ansem grinned and waved his hand, watching as his command became the spark that caused the Heartless made a mad rush towards its target.

There was no reason to prolong the fight. Riku knew that the sooner he could pass this test, the sooner Hope could be free to finding a cure to the Darkness inside him. It was true that the older boy may have very well been beyond saving, but this was the final act he had to accomplish above all else. Never again would Hope have any reason to doubt that Riku hadn’t given his all to protect him.

With only seconds to decide his actions, Riku backed away from the oncoming Heartless. He waited, patiently, to phase quickly out of its reach just when it swung at him, sweeping low with his blade while he dove forward and grazed the skin of the Guardian’s arm with the tip of his weapon. He breathed deeply as he alighted behind it, spinning around to knock back a blow from the creature’s massive claws that would have otherwise torn him into ribbons. The beast staggered a moment, reeling as Riku dashed in to try to catch it off guard while the chance presented itself.

The Guardian roared, the blade sinking deep into the flesh along its back. Riku smirked and curled the weapon up, leaping to open the wound as wide and as long as he could manage. SoulEater carved out its path as if the Heartless were made of paper, sheared flesh from muscle and drew black blood almost effortlessly. With a grunt, Riku reached out to grip onto one of the Heartless’ antenna and wrenched as hard as his strength would allow him to. He threw every ounce of his determination into dragging the Heartless down. The boy’s weight, along with the pain from being wounded was enough to pin the Guardian down into the floor.

“I’ve got you!” Riku heaved, braced against its back, releasing his hold on the antenna to grip SoulEater’s handle with both hands as he raised high it to deliver the final blow.

Just when we was going to bring the blade down however, the floor underneath them gave way into Darkness, and the Guardian disappeared into the mire.

It was through sheer luck that Riku himself didn’t sink into it as well. He cursed, leaping to avoid getting trapped in it as had happened to him before in the past. His eyes quickly wandered through the hall, searching for the Heartless that had all but disappeared from sight. He found its trail after a moment. The only sign of the Guardian’s whereabouts was from a single fast moving shadow that raced along the floor and walls.

“Guardian may have very well deserved that punishment you gave him.” Ansem’s tone had dropped down menacing growl as echoed out. “But it would be unwise for you to presume that he’s by any means finished.”

The moving shadow that had almost made its way up to the ceiling turned back suddenly and sped straight towards Riku with alarming speed. He glared as he watched it approach, taking a stance with his blade pointed down to the floor to gain the advantage of being able to block an incoming attack from below, but knew that it would only be a defensive maneuver. He wouldn’t be able to directly go after that Guardian so long as it remained hidden in the ground.

Riku expected the claws that swung wildly at him as the Guardian erupted from the Darkness as soon as it was directly beneath him. He batted away the attack, careful to be just out of reach while stabbing at any available opening that he could find. The Heartless growled, leaping up to fully expose itself, slashing, before diving back into the floor once more.

The boy breathed heavily as it became increasingly apparent that neither of the opponents could do any real damage to the other. He was too quick and responsive to be caught out of position and the Heartless refused to face him without the protection of being unreachable at any given second. If Riku was going to have any chance of ending the duel, he had to find a way to drag it out and keep it from escaping for long enough to run it through.

However, there were only more failed attacks. Each time the Guardian attempted to strike from below, and each time Riku to sent it back underground before it could possibly suffer any more wounds.

“Come out of there and fight me!” Riku challenged, panting and tired of being unable to do anything other than deflecting.

“You of all people should know better than to ask for things before knowing the entire situation.” Ansem mocked him and tapped his foot twice against the floor.

The shadow on the floor immediately changed. It stopped suddenly, pulsing, shuddering and grew wider. The blackness expanded and Darkness covered almost half of the entire hall, warping everything it came in contact with as it crept along the ground and up into the walls. Riku kept himself carefully out of its reach and was wary of every step he took. He stood ready, watching intently for the signs of what was to come next.

From the Darkness emerged the Guardian once more, larger, deadlier but this time it was wrapped about the body of a host, connected both by Darkness and the will of the one beneath it. The host that born from the same blackness, but had taken on a human form, a warrior’s form. Riku found himself staring at a twisted creature almost in the exact likeness of himself, and the blood in his veins ran cold. The was almost no color left in any of its features, all having been replaced with black. All that remained was glowing yellow eyes and a sinister smile that never waned.

This was himself, in the form that Ansem wanted him to someday become. This was everything that the Heartless had trained him for, had coerced and manipulated him towards from the moment the two joined in Hollow Bastion and Riku could see it all. This creature was him, taunting and far more powerful beyond any of Riku’s own set of acquired skills.

Worst of all was that in its hand was a Keyblade. The very same Keyblade Riku himself had once wielded against Sora on the day Ansem had first begun to control him.

“What…?” He found himself backing away. His resolve waned in the sight of such power, _his_ power by right. “What is this?”

“You should be ready to fight against anything my pet.” Ansem replied calmly. “Even yourself. Take back everything that is rightfully yours and Hope can be free.”

The dark version of Riku charged, waiting for nothing to begin its merciless assault. In an instant, the boy found himself from having the upperhand of the fight to fiercely battling for his life against the one thing he never imagined he’d have to face. He saw in the dark version of himself everything that at one time in his life had been all he ever wanted. The power to control Darkness, to manipulate and bend it in every sense of the word to his will so that no one would ever be a challenge to him ever again. 

There was an undeniable part of him that yearned to feel what his opponent must have felt. He wanted to know once again the complete disregard of pain and limitless energy beyond understanding. He wanted to remember what it was like to be invincible. The creature flew towards him, silent, dark energies rippling and responding to its presence as if it was its one true master. The floor shattered in its wake, sending jagged pieces hurling in every direction, a minefield of shrapnel that became suspended in mid air.

Riku had no choice but to run, but there was precious little space that allowed for him to. The fight itself became hardly more than a chase, with the boy trying to regain whatever control of the situation there was left. A crippling fear overtook and nearly immobilized him. Against a stronger, more ruthless version of himself Riku doubted there was much he could do against it. He simply wasn’t strong enough to withstand a speed and power that exceeded human limits.

The shards of Darkness made it nearly impossible for him to phase without the chance of him getting torn apart or impaled wherever he went, and there was hardly any ground that he could step on without his footing becoming mired. It was a situation that the imitation of himself undoubtedly created on purpose, to keep him helpless and unable to move while it fluidly sped to wherever it pleased. There was no to deny that it knew exactly what it was doing.

All with the Keyblade that Riku knew SoulEater would never stand a chance against.

He shifted and wormed his way to the safest place he could find as quickly as he could, ducking and dodging in whatever way was possible. Every second he hesitated the imitation was ever closer, and he was moving too slow. He _knew_ he was moving too slow.

The Keyblade crashed down directly behind him and there was no way he would dare look back to see how close it had gotten. To do so would have only instilled more fear to what was already mounting within him. Riku rolled quickly to the side and put a column of stone between him and his opponent, back pressed against smooth, fortified stone. He was gasping, breathing so hard that it almost brought him to the point of tears. His nerves were shot and somewhere in the back of his mind a voice whispered that there was nowhere that he would ever be safe again.

“Hiding will do you no good. Your other self will _always_ be able to sense your fear.” Ansem called out a warning just before the stone pillar above Riku exploded.

There was screaming and he couldn’t tell if it was coming from him or Hope.

The imitation of himself burst through the remains of the pillar above Riku’s head, a slice of dark energy sent out of its palm directly to where he was standing. He dodged it, crying out as he collided with a sharp edge of the destroyed hall’s floor in the process. It sliced through the fabric of his pants and the outer portion of his thigh as if they were one and the same, and he could feel as something warm and wet ran down towards his ankle. However deep the wound was didn’t matter. He couldn’t allow it to stop him from moving.

Guardian roared from below him, claws extending from the Darkness to rake at him from whatever angle they could. Riku evaded that as well, narrowly by pure luck, but was quickly becoming overwhelmed with having to be aware of being attacked simultaneously from any direction at once. There was a limit to how much his senses could detect from the pair of combatants, and he genuinely wondered if he could survive. They worked together too flawlessly, not as two separate beings but as one, terrible and overwhelming.

Riku had no choice but to phase and use all the dark power he could manipulate to his will. The true test however, the one that he now knew Ansem wanted him to perform, was to somehow manage to take the Keyblade away from the imposter. To take back _his_ Keyblade. He had tried and failed to obtain one in the fields, but his Keyblade was still very much alive and if he could manage it, he could be a Master once again.

He leapt as high as he could, several orbs of Darkness trailing just at his fingertips and at the end of his blade to bring it all cascading down onto his imposter. It was a desperate final attack, but Riku found himself with no other options.

The dark form of himself looked up, raising its Keyblade high to defend as Riku brought SoulEater down onto it with every ounce of strength left in him. The two weapons met in a brilliant display of Darkness that resonated through the hall with a resounding roar. When the air finally cleared Riku was on his knees before his opponent with a half broken blade still held firmly in his hand.

“He… lost…” Hope whispered, covering his mouth with his hands as he coughed violently. “Riku…”

It had all happened so fast. Riku honestly couldn’t believe that anything could happen that quickly, but it had. One second he had been in control, had all the power that Ansem had taught him to use careening towards the imposter with deadly speed and the next…

The next SoulEater had shattered in his hand and the Darkness he had thought had been his all along had simply disintegrated into nothing.

Riku panted, looked over to see Ansem standing directly behind the other boy with his own weapon poised, blade-down and hovering just at the juncture between Hope’s neck and left shoulder.

“Indeed.” The man agreed with the boy who stood oblivious before him, his voice betraying none of his intentions. “I’m afraid I cannot let you leave then Hope.”

“NO-!” Riku screamed as he watched Ansem’s blade descend.

Hope looked about ready to say more, his gaze fixated on Riku and then he was gone. There was no final words either of the boys could have said before Hope’s grey eyes glassed over and he collapsed, lifeless. There was nothing other than the sound of Ansem taking a life that never should have been under his control from the start.

The execution was swift and Hope’s body fell forward, limp, black blood pooling all about his still form on the floor.

“NO!” Riku released a blood curdling howl that sounded otherworldly to his ears. He tore his way across the hall to get to the unmoving body, entirely mindless of anyone or anything else. The imitation, the Guardian, even Ansem himself no longer mattered. Hope had died and all that pervaded Riku’s mind was the thought that he needed to be there with his friend.

There was no pain. There was no fear. There was only the knowledge that Hope was dead and it was all _his_ fault.

He stumbled, reeling, the wound in his leg finally manifesting himself in excruciating, sheering pain. Riku gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it as best as he could, all while crying out with the voice of a pained, broken soul. His body was giving out, too shocked, too weary to continued onward and yet he couldn’t allow himself to rest.

It was _all_ his fault.

Something in Riku’s mind shattered as the thought sank into him and became rooted into the very core of his existence.

He stopped short, knees stained in the blood of his friend, lurching, sobbing, every part of him breaking down into tiny shards of himself that disappeared into oblivion.

It _was_ all his fault.

If he had told Hope from the start… If he had the courage to admit he had been wrong…

“Riku.” Ansem was calling to him, a faraway voice that grew ever fainter by the second. “Riku, answer me.”

The boy who was still living finally looked up at him with tearful storm blue eyes. He croaked out a name. A name Ansem had not heard in almost a lifetime.

“Xehanort.”


	8. Underlying Phantoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many apologies for getting this chapter out a week later than expected! _Apparently_ muses can take vacations too. The good news is that they're back and properly motivated so that this story can continue as intended.
> 
> Thank you for your patience dear reader, and please enjoy.

Two years.

It had been over two years and still Sora had the image of Ansem’s glowing eyes perfectly imprinted into his mind.

In the entire time it had been since Riku had been taken, Sora had never once forgotten the horror of watching the life of his friend slip away into the black.

On that fateful day he had tried everything to open the Door to Darkness, to reach out to his best friend and save him from the person that threatened to remove Riku from all existence before it was too late. Sora had tried, repeatedly, and failed. He failed because his Keyblade had been all but powerless, having been initially created to seal away the Dark instead of unleashing it. Sora was a chosen champion of Light after all, and wanting to save someone who had been taken into Darkness was inconceivable, no matter how close of a friend they were.

After all, Darkness and Light were never supposed to interact with each other.

Surprisingly, Kairi had been the one to extract him from that horrible place, practically dragging him away from the Door and out into the living, breathing world. He had struggled against her at first, refusing to leave the last place where he'd seen Riku’s terrified green eyes that would haunt him from that point onward. He had struggled and screamed and pleaded with her to not take him away because Riku was trapped just out of reach with a madman. A madman who was determined to take everything he wanted for his own. Sora begged and Kairi kept leading him away.

He didn't remember much of the journey back to Hollow Bastion, but he did remember watching her cry. She cried, and so did he. They both ended up sobbing into each other's arms at one point along the way, because Kairi cared about their stolen friend, and she empathized with Sora’s loss in a way no one else could. She cried because Riku had been her friend too, and no longer having him as a part of their lives had taken them both completely by surprise.

The three of them had practically grown up together. They had made plans together, laughed together, even sometimes dreamed together. They had all three built a raft one summer, and Sora had promised Riku that he and Kairi wouldn't ever slow him down. In that moment that promise meant more to him than anything else in the worlds.

Then Riku was gone, unreachable, and had left nothing but a gash of empty loss within Sora’s heart in the place of where he had once been.

When Sora had finally managed to calm down a little, Kairi explained to him that Riku was strong, the strongest person any of them had ever met, and she was sure that somehow he would escape from Ansem’s control. She had made promises of her own that day too. Promises of never giving up searching for their friend. Promises of some day they would bring Riku home and everything would go back to the way it had always been. She promised over and over again that she would do everything in her power to find him, which was substantial considering that now she had become a Queen.

Two years had changed a lot of things.

Almost as soon as they had returned to Hollow Bastion, Kairi had been swept up and named as ruling monarch of the entire world. There has been a coronation, a lot of oaths, even a dress that Sora thought was too frilly for the tomboyish girl he'd grown up with on the islands. She had performed every aspect of the ritualistic ceremony to near perfection, or, at least that's what Sora had come to believe. Everyone seemed pleased by how well she had taken on the responsibility, how she was young and yet still wise enough to listen to other’s council and not assume she knew everything herself. Kairi willingly accepted her new role in life with grace and humility, which only endeared her to her people even more.

She had the makings of being the greatest Queen Hollow Bastion had seen in hundreds of years, and still she managed to somehow be as just and honorable to all of her subjects, low and highborn alike. Under her guidance, Hollow Bastion began to thrive as if it hadn't been overrun by Darkness only a few short years beforehand. Once again, the glory of her home world began to shine like a beacon of hope across the stars, beckoning to all those who needed a safe haven or a place to start anew.

One of her first royal decrees was that no person would be turned away for seeking asylum, no matter where from or what their past may have been.

Predictably, the refugees began pouring in by the ship full. There were so many people whose lives had been destroyed by the Darkness, whose worlds had been consumed so quickly that most only had enough time to leave with only the clothes on their back and nothing else to their name. The luckiest of the refugees had brought their loved ones with them, but a majority had been forced to leave behind everything, family and friends alike. Those were the ones that suffered the most, who needed the most help just for a reason to keep living for the next tomorrow.

Queen Kairi was wise enough to know that the situation was critical, and not something she could handle alone. She quickly appointed her closest friends and allies to elevated positions to help deter an otherwise impending crisis and to alleviate some of the day to day stresses that she otherwise had to oversee. In a relatively short amount of time, Hollow Bastion had taken in too many people too quickly and there were many who doubted whether the world could sustain such a vast influx in the population. Despite what some of her advisors had cautioned against, Kairi maintained that the gates of the world were to remain open no matter what.

The Hollow Bastion Resettlement Project Committee had been formed almost overnight, and Sora had been one of its founding members.

As a named Champion of Light, the people heralded Sora as a defender of the world. He was a hero to whom many accredited their lives and their safety, him alongside the Crown. His name as well as his strength as a Keybearer had become a legend among the commonfolk and the stories of his adventures became something for them to speak of, something other than the death and despair that prevaded the rest of their lives. It gave those who otherwise had little else to live for an ideal to strive towards, so much so that the more Sora’s popularity increased, the more people wished to join him in the fight against the Darkness.

It was a never ending task, a struggle to keep some worlds from falling while at the same time assisting with those that were already gone. It was supposed to be hero work, and yet Sora hadn’t felt like much of a hero since the day Riku had left. No matter how many worlds he saved, how many lives he rescued he never could forget the one person that he wanted to see the most. He used all of his influence, all of his reputation to try and reach out to anyone willing to assist him in his search. Every chance he got, he had asked the same question so many times that the words felt as if they were ingrained into his very being.

However no one had seen or heard so much of a whisper of a boy from Destiny Islands with silver hair and green eyes. Riku had all but vanished in a single instant, and yet Sora stubbornly believed that somewhere out there his friend was still alive, and fighting to survive. So long as there was still a chance at finding his friend, Sora refused to give up looking. No matter what, he was going to bring Riku back.

In two years Sora had exhausted every lead he could find, even going so far as to rely on less reputable sources for whatever pieces of information was available. For Riku’s sake, he’d gone to places that had nearly become breeding grounds for Darkness in their own right, full of individuals that would sooner kill him rather than so much as look in his general direction. He asked, bartered, sometimes even threatened people just for the off chance that somehow, someone knew of even a clue.

Nothing came of it, and as he always did whenever his leads ran dry, he returned to Hollow Bastion with nothing to show but an ever-mounting list of shortcomings.

It was with these feelings hovering in the back of his mind that the Keybearer breathed deeply and closed his eyes once again, trying to focus on anything other than the thought that another attempt at falling asleep wasn't going to be any different. He’d been lying alone in his room for hours and had only succeeded in but a few brief moments of rest before abruptly waking himself up again. His mind sometimes blatantly refused to allow himself to sleep and there seemed to be nothing he could do to change that fact. It was frustrating beyond anything else when all he wanted to do was just to have a chance to dream.

There had once been a time that sleeping had been his only solace, his only real source of comfort. In his dreams Riku hadn’t been taken away from him. In his dreams Riku was still there for him as he had always been since they had first met in front of their school all those many years before. For almost every day since then they had been nearly inseparable, had always looked out for each other no matter who or what changed in the course of their lives. They had remained steadfast friends right up until the day their world had been destroyed.

In his dreams however, Sora had made Riku promise that someday, somehow, the two of them would go back to that world as they talked together side by side on the beach.

“Sora?” A female voice startled him almost badly enough for the Keybearer to yelp out of alarm. It called out from the other side of his bedroom door, patiently waiting for a response as he gasped, reaching across the blankets and stashing a plain wooden sword underneath the pillows. He sat up, rubbing his eyes that ached from exhaustion before quickly to turn on the lights.

“Come in Kai- I mean Your Highness.” Sora sighed in a mix of relief and slight irritation.

“You're never going to get used to that are you?” Kairi giggled softly as she walked into his room, not deterred in the slightest to see Sora sitting up in his bed, not looking like he’d slept in days. She chose to sit down next to him, unceremoniously, as she had done many times beforehand whenever she chose to speak with her friend unannounced. 

“No, I don't think so.” He tried his best to smile and looked over at her for a moment. She was dressed fairly casually for a Queen, all things considered. Most days she refused to wear anything that was longer than to her knees in length, which was the cause of some grief for some of her more… traditionally valued advisors. On this particular visit she looked as close to how she did on Destiny Islands as Sora had seen her in some time, if one chose to ignore the crown of course.

It made him feel a little better to know that in the midst of all the things that had been thrown to the wind in his life, maybe some things really hadn’t changed at all.

“When did you get back?” The Queen asked him, a hint of concern written across her face.

“Couple of hours ago?” Sora didn’t sound entirely sure. He blinked as he tried to recall just how long he had spent lying on his bed doing absolutely nothing. He had docked his ship with Cid sometime in the middle of the night and judging by how the sun hadn't yet broken, it still had to have been very early morning.

“And how many times have I told you to let me know when you come back?” Kairi playfully punched him squarely in the upper arm, a harmless habit that she had picked up many years beforehand. “I’ve been worried about you this whole time. The least you can do to bother me is with a ‘hello’.”

“I know…”

He felt a little guilty as he scratched the back of his head with his hand. Kairi didn't deserve to be left behind every time that Sora went out on his search missions, but neither could she just leave when there was a whole kingdom depending on her. Her responsibilities to her world came first in her life now, even if the well-being of a childhood friend was at stake. Hollow Bastion needed her for guidance in the same way that they needed Sora for protection.

Both of those things came at a cost though. The time Kairi had invested into finding Riku had slowly dwindled until she could barely even afford allowing Sora to leave Hollow Bastion for extended periods of time. Not that she’d ever specifically told him to stop, but it was infuriating at times for the Keybearer whenever he felt as if he was the last one left who even cared that his friend was gone.

“So,” Kairi prodded him with the slightest quiver of trepidation in her voice. “where'd you go this time?”

He thought for a second about lying. Thought about telling her that he'd gone off to some far away world and saved it from all the evils of Darkness and fought off hordes of Heartless along the way. Sora wanted to tell her about how much of a hero he had been because it seemed to make her happy for him to do something other than endlessly searching for what seemed a lost cause. He wanted to lie, but couldn’t.

“Traverse Town…” He replied, a little sullen, but with no real remorse. The world had become less than warm in years following the departure of a majority of their population, and Kairi had more than once forbidden him from going there alone.

“Sora-!”

“I know. I know… There was just something I had to go find out. It could have been a clue.”

Kairi sighed heavily, face up towards the ceiling as her breath escape her. She was never one to truly be mad at him, no matter how many times she had made him swear that he wouldn’t do anything reckless.

“You look tired.” She tilted her head as she spoke, observing the way his face seemed a little more worn out than the last time she’d seen him. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t sleep.” Sora replied slowly after taking a moment to collect himself. “I mean… I can sleep, but…”

“He’s not in your dreams anymore, is he?” Kairi was always wickedly perceptive when it came to anything involving Sora and his feelings. At one time he might have thought of it as a nuisance, but now it was a comfort in its own way. She never seemed to have a problem with voicing that which Sora couldn’t. He’d told her early on about the dreams because she was the only person he felt wouldn’t think of him as crazy or obsessed.

“All I see is darkness.” Sora hung his head dejectedly. “I used to be able to talk to him. Somehow… I could sense him, feel him trying to call out to me. But now it’s nothing. I thought I heard him once, the last time I dreamed, but when I turned around to find him it was just the wind.”

“Sora…”

He grimaced as the memories filled too many emotions for him to be able to grasp them all at once only continued to swell in his mind. The helpless rage, the pain, the remorse at having failed so many times all centered around one life-changing moment often became too much for him to bear. In truth he hated the feeling of being left adrift while everyone else’s life had continued onwards, as if somehow he should have moved on past what had happened. As if he could somehow let go.

Holding back a choke, Sora unknowingly inched his hand behind him towards the pillow covering the only relic he had left from when Riku was still around.

“Traverse Town ended up being a dead end.” He diverted the subject quickly, his chest tightening. “The person who I talked to there thought he found a way into the Dark Realm. Turns out it just led back into another part of an already fallen world.”

“Sora!” Kairi scooted herself until she was sitting facing him. She took his hands and held them gently in hers all while looking like she was doing her best to stop her own tears. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself! You’re going to end up getting hurt.”

“He’s alive Kairi. I _know_ he’s alive out there… He… He needs our help… somehow.” Sora swallowed back the emptiness that had sunk down into his gut. He felt all of his strength being sapped out of him. His once cheerful disposition had instead become dispirited, and as if the weight of two years worth of defeat had finally come to rest on top of him.

“I’m not saying not to look for him.” Kairi shook her head, eyes softening sympathetically. “But going into the Dark Realm alone… There’s a reason it’s been sealed away. Also, you’re spending so much time looking for him that you're not taking the time to take care of yourself. I know he wouldn’t want that for you.”

“I- I am taking care of myself!” Sora protested, eyes widening and a bit taken aback by the strength of Kairi’s declaration.

“Says the person who looks like they haven't slept a full night through in a month.” She pursed her lips together, brows furrowed as she tried to appeal to him from a more logical perspective. “You can't expect to be able to fight off whatever is out there when you're not even aware of how little you’re doing to keep yourself strong. Sora... I’m worried. I’m worried because I can’t… I don’t think I... could stand losing both of my friends.”

Sora didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so distressed before as she let go of his hands and walked slowly towards the door.

“Kairi… I don’t know what else to do.” The Keybearer confessed, searching for the words to say to tell her how much her friendship still meant to him, regardless of how little he seemed to value her advice. He silently appreciated how she steadfastly supported him even as he struggled to find the reasons to keep his beliefs alive. There was so much he wanted to say to her, to let her know about all the twisted emotions he’d been living with for the last couple of years, but could never line the pieces of his feelings up in the correct way to voice them.

“There’s a Council meeting later on this afternoon that you’ve been requested to attend.” Sora could tell that Kairi was steeling her words from cracking. “It would be nice if you could make it.”

“I’ll… I’ll be there.”

The Queen turned back to him, her features cold, the same way that she did whenever she was being a ruler and not just his friend.

“Sora, do what you have to do. But please don’t forget about those of us who are concerned about you.”

She left, and Sora laid back down in the off chance that maybe one more try at a dream on a beach wasn’t too much of a miracle to ask for.

~❣~

“You _gravely_ miscalculated.”

Ansem stood his ground in front of his Other in the Castle That Never Was.

“There was nothing to calculate.” The Heartless stated, his resolve refusing to waver even in the face of his own mistakes. “Neither of us had any reason to be suspicious of there being other forces at play here.”

Xemnas scoffed from his seat held solely for the position of Superior of Organization XIII. He sat in his chair, knowing that neither of them would be disturbed while they were in his private chamber. No one was stupid enough to test his anger by seeking to interrupt them, especially in the midst of their obvious disagreement. 

While on most occasions Xemnas himself went out of his way to visit his less-reliable Other in the hideaway that barely qualified as a castle, in light of recent events the Nobody had ordered Ansem to travel to the Castle That Never Was instead. In Xemnas’ own refuge he doubted that the Heartless would have many games to play. Which was, truthfully, how Xemnas wanted it. 

Outside of his fortress, his Other would have nowhere to hide or fake his deeds. The elements were against him, and Xemnas ensured that he would have the upper hand no matter what Ansem tried. With his Other finally backed against the wall, Xemnas was sure that he could finally extract the truth of what had happened to the boys who were supposed to have already been brought into the Darkness. Answers that Ansem seemed to be unwilling to give otherwise.

The Heartless had arrived wordlessly, appearing before his Other in high form, as if he hadn’t just committed the worst oversight between either of the halves since they had been split apart. As if all their plans hadn’t been laid to waste in a single evening of unforeseen circumstances that may as well have undone everything either of them had worked so hard for. Ansem stood silent, all except for when Xemnas asked him a direct question, arms crossed and head high, Guardian silently, restlessly at his side. 

“You have nothing.” Xemnas stated maliciously, but honestly. “My Organization has given you more than enough time to do whatever you wished with whomever you’ve decided to play with in the expectation that you would be good on your word. We’ve been patient, despite your blunders, despite your obvious hesitancy to do what must be done. Now there is nothing to compensate for your atrocities, and yet you still dare to argue in light of your incompetence?”

“You cannot fault me for something that could not have been foreseen.” Ansem’s jaw tensed as he spoke, evenly meeting his Other’s glare. “And the situation can still be rectified.”

Xemnas’ glower deepened.

“You have no say anymore over what can or cannot be done. This situation _will_ be reversed, but only under my orders.”

“And you think you have any right to control me?” Ansem lowered his voice as the Guardian rumbled menacingly at his back.

“You forfeited any control you had the moment you let your own personal... proclivities get in the way of our plans.” The leader of the Nobodies made not a move from his chair, his gaze hovering on the creature poised at Ansem’s back. “You have continuously expressed your grand designs to rule all worlds as well as lead Kingdom Hearts under the command of an all-consuming Darkness, and yet you couldn’t even bring a single pet to heel. You have been projecting that which you have lost onto the boy, and in so doing, you have allowed him to become lost as well.”

Ansem shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“You’d have me destroy him?” He asked with his brow raised.

“I’d do no less to my own pet if he no longer was himself.” The Superior answered with no trace hesitation. “Yours isn’t in the right frame of mind to be brought into the fold, so to speak. Terra’s consciousness has overtaken your pet’s to the point of where you cannot even attempt to give him the Gift. There is no reason now to delay his death. If you had the foresight to do the intelligent course of action, you would have brought him with you today so we could have had the deed over and done with.”

Ansem allowed his head to drop for a brief moment, white hair spilling over his shoulders and chest. He paused, and then exhaled deeply.

“You truly believe… that I have done all this… because I am still ruled by the memories of when we were once whole.”

“I believe that out of the two of us, _you_ are the one who has a heart to remember him by.” Xemnas snapped back at the Heartless, his words resonating with a deep hatred.

Gold eyes quickly fixated on him, accompanied by a vicious laugh. Ansem’s mockery was brittle and harsh, but Xemnas endured it. He endured until the Heartless had finished and stood once more proud and tall before him.

“He would have called you _pathetic_.” His Other sneered, the corners of his lips still curled upwards. “Believing in something as meaningless as affection being able to sway my course of action. You think that I would stoop so low as to allow mere memories of a single pet to derail me? You think I am capable of feeling something as trite as endearment?”

“You've proven over many times that you hold a certain fascination for your pet.” Xemnas countered. “Enough so that you have purposefully disregarded the advice I have given you on how to handle these matters.”

“I have always valued your opinion, my Other. Do not misunderstand my intentions.” Ansem tilted his head and almost looked offended.

“How else then do you explain what happened?”

“I will concede that it was my irresponsibility that brought about these turn of events. However, it is still but a broken shard of Terra that has but a tentative hold over the boy, so long as we don’t delay to reverse the damage. It takes considerable effort to keep another mind under one’s control while in a foreign body. If this is played correctly, all of us can still benefit despite what you may think.”

“I don’t gamble on things that should be destroyed.” Xemnas’ scowl deepened.

“There is no gambling if you’re not investing anything.” Ansem retorted back. “You have nothing to lose from any of this. He isn’t your pet after all. Not only that, but what can be gained however more than compensates for the inconveniences that this incident has caused.”

Ansem smiled and it appeared as close to genuine as could be expected. If Xemnas had been a weaker being he may have easily allowed himself to be manipulated by such features. For him though, it took little effort to see the farce of it all, the evidence plainly written all across Ansem’s face. The Heartless had come to the Castle That Never Was not because he wished to appease Xemnas, but for a chance to reclaim lost favor. For everything that the Heartless was, for all the unbridled power at his disposal, his connection to deep emotions were still his greatest weakness. No matter what Ansem said, no matter how much that he denied it, there were still strong memories that guided him down a path that neither of them of could see clearly.

Xemnas, for one, didn’t trust blind instincts.

“What is your proposal then my Other?” The Superior questioned, careful to not let his thoughts become discernable.

“I humbly ask for your assistance in a matter that I would only trust to to you, my other self.” Ansem bowed forward, not fully but enough to appease to Xemnas’ insatiable pride. “Grant me your aide in this one last chance at procuring for us the strongest and above all else _most loyal_ of all of the pawns we have yet acquired and I guarantee that he will be second in power to only ourselves. With his Darkness expounded by our own, there will be _nothing_ to resist us. Worlds will fall before him, and Kingdom Hearts will be forced to kneel before our feet.”

The Heartless was calm and respectful while his Nobody continued to gaze at him.

“Proud words.” Xemnas snickered, but appeared to remain unswayed. “But I’ve heard similar things before. You’re in no position to negotiate what happens from here on out. You will tell me everything about what happened that night, and you will divulge to me every last nuance of your so-called plan.”

“Whatever you wish shall be given to you.” Ansem was closing in, his heartbeat roaring like a drum in Xemnas’ ears. “For you, my Other, I would offer all the worlds.”

The desire to reach out and claim the heart for his own was mind-numbing. It was an occurrence that remained the primary reason why Xemnas had ensured that most of their correspondences had been over lengthy letters, rather than face to face. Almost every time he was around the Heartless, there inevitably came a point where the Nobody’s will almost broke down. Logically, he knew it was just natural causes that were influencing the two halves back into one being. Their separation was an irregularity and the lack of being whole constantly ate away at him.

Still, there were times it felt like more being two halves of the same whole was an oversimplification. They were two halves, but they were also one and the same.

“You will promise me…” Xemnas laced his fingers together in front of his face, pronouncing his words in a clipped tone. “That this is will be the only attempt to bring your pet back. Either he will join us, or you will dispose of him. Publicly. Where I may watch his final moments myself.”

A moment passed as the two assessed the other, judging who exactly was in the right and how to go about their negotiations.

“You truly hold no regard for the boy whatsoever do you?”

“I don’t trust the words of a fool who thinks that he can replicate that which has already been proven faulty.”

Ansem tilted his head coyly.

“The same mistakes won’t be made again. I won’t lose this one.”

“And how can you be so sure of that?” Xemnas shook his head in disbelief.

Ansem grinned, trailing a hand along one of the Guardian’s antenna.

“Because my Other, when all of this is over and done, there will not be anything else for him to turn to.”

~❣~

Leon had known that becoming a Captain of the Royal Guard meant that there would never be a lack of late nights and early mornings.

The agenda for the day had been set, sent to him via email right before he had turned into bed the night beforehand, and as it had been expected Leon had it already memorized by heart. He recalled that it was fairly typical schedule, one that was full of business such as the overseeing the new recruits who had joined the Guard, daily duties to reinforce castle security and then a Council meeting in the early afternoon followed by any other issues that came up over that time.

It was a well known fact that the brunette had always been a person set by his routines in nearly every aspect of his life. While every day presented new challenges, new sets of difficulties, from beginning to end there needed to be order and structure throughout all of it. Everything always fell into line, one way one another, exactly how Leon wanted it to and if it didn't, then somehow, someway, it would be corrected.

If this morning was to be like so many others, Leon figured he probably had an extra fifteen minutes to himself before Cloud would fully wake and subsequently kickstart both their days that would be occupied completely all the way into the late evening. Their time was almost entirely taken by the demands of the Kingdom, so much so that they barely got to see each other outside of their own home. The moments they were allowed to spend together were rare and appreciated, and while Leon enjoy them immensely, a few quiet moments alone were still something he found necessary.

Nothing in their house stirred as he went about his routine of setting aside his and Cloud’s uniforms, pressed and decorated befitting their ranks, as well as preparing a kettle of hot tea to brew. If he listened closely, he could still hear the peaceful sounds of Cloud’s deep breathing in the bedroom behind him, oblivious as always to the rest of reality. Leon barely allowed himself a smile at the thought of how much of a scarcity it was to have such a perfect morning. For once, all was right with the world. All was peaceful as the first rays of sunlight barely crept through the windows.

Leon always preferred to utilize his respites for time to glean some extra information regarding his duty as Captain or to address issues that had previously been overlooked. There was a long list of problems that required his attention, ranging anywhere from the mundane to the astronomically complex. It was his duty to prioritize them, and to make sure that they were resolved in their entirety.

A mug of steaming tea in hand, Leon settled into his office chair in front of his computer, mindful of how close his drink came to the keyboard. A flick of the mouse brought the machine humming back to life, the monitor whirring as it lit up in front of him. For a moment the screen was blurred before the pixels corrected themselves. The computer was an older model, brought about from a time before the world had been corrupted, but still it was useful. For Leon all that mattered was that it still successfully connected with the main server of the castle.

He almost clicked away the message, dismissed it as another user error that Cloud most likely accomplished, because the truth was that his partner didn't ever care to teach himself otherwise. Computers were never his strong point anyway.

In bold letters, the words hovered in the exact center of the screen.

 

**File Transfer Error.  
Code: 13  
Failure to connect to Graveyard Castle CPU.**

**Do you wish to cancel transfer operation?**

**Yes No**

 

Leon stopped short, reading the lines of text no less than three times over, and felt all the blood drain away of his face.

Cloud woke up the sound of the printer frantically whirring, spitting out page after page that landed wherever they happened to drift down to on the carpeted floor.

“What’s… all this…?” The blonde murmured, still half asleep, eyes scanning over all the different pages and their contents quizzically. He gathered up what papers were immediately at his feet, overturning them to find out just what had his partner printing out a veritable book while it was still early morning.

“Not now.” Leon snapped without even bothering so much as to turn in his general direction.

Cloud was taken aback, normally not use to anything other than the brunette’s perpetually calm demeanor. Most mornings his partner was actually very soothing to be around, a gentle source that Cloud had come to rely on to coax him out of his otherwise bleary, tired state. Usually there would be tender touches, a hot drink and soft words while the blonde tried very hard not to think of all the things that had to be done that day.

That was not this Leon however. This Leon was in a frenzy, mashing on the keys to the keyboard and clicking the mouse almost at the same pace, completely focused on what was being displayed on screen.

“Hey!” Cloud spoke forcefully, not meaning to yell, however this was _not_ how he enjoyed waking up. “What’s going on here?”

“Not now!” The brunette yelled back, still not looking at him.

The blonde had had enough. He grabbed the edge of the office chair, yanking the man away from the computer and spun him around so they’d _have_ to face each other.

“What’s-” The question died on Cloud’s lips as he found himself greeted by the stark terror in his partner’s eyes. 

He’d never seen such wild panic in Leon before. Never thought that the brunette was even capable of getting to such a state of alarm. However there he was, gripping the armrests of the chair as if he would bolt otherwise, sweat beading around the fringes of his brow.

Leon spoke in an almost whisper.

“We’ve been hacked.”

~❣~

When Sora arrived at the Council Chamber he couldn’t have said that he was really surprised to see that everyone was already waiting for him.

Queen Kairi, as always, was at her seat at the end of the table, surrounded on either side by the people who she had come to trust and rely on over the last few years. Most of them Sora knew as friends, such as Aerith who had become one of the chief overseers of the Refugee Relocation Project, and Cid who was now Master of the Shipyard and Commander of the Royal Fleet. Cloud and Leon were both there as well, which was to be expected from the duo Captains of the Royal Guard. It was also a great honor to have the wizard and Master Yen Sid present, for he rarely traveled away from his enchanted tower, preferring to spend most of his time studying.

Then there was Diz, the newest of all the Council members and yet had somehow become Kairi’s most trusted advisor. He was an enigmatic man who supposedly had grown up in Hollow Bastion back before Ansem had ever set foot on the world. The rumor surrounding him was that he had once been a sort of wise-man or a scholar, though the details were a bit vague as to what he was knowledgeable in. Some said he knew great magics, magic perhaps stronger than even the powerful Yen Sid. Some said he knew all the secrets of the world and could tell what lay under the foundations at their very feet. Then there were some who said he was just fraud, a charlatan, who only used the Queen for his own personal interests.

Whatever the truth was, Kairi offered no insight into what she admired about him. She never dissuaded the rumors, but never tried to dissolve them either.

“It’s good to see that all of us are here today.” Diz spoke aloud first, casting Sora a sidelong glance.

“Sorry I’m late.” The youth mumbled as he took his seat. “I didn’t mean to sleep for so long.”

Kairi caught his eye and gave him a knowing smirk, mouthing the word ‘sleepyhead’ before the others could catch her in the act. Sora smiled in a way he hadn’t felt like he had in ages. It was surprisingly nice to be teased over old habits by his friend despite the fact that his dreams had been nothing but solitary darkness.

“We’re just glad to have you here with us.” Aerith nodded from across the table at him. “It’s been some time since you went out on your last expedition.”

“Yeah well…” Sora tried to hide how uncomfortable he felt about the impending subject. “...better late than never huh?”

“Indeed.” Yen Sid waved his hand over the table to indicate that they were all now ready for the meeting to proceed. “We may now begin.”

Diz stood up from his chair, arms hidden underneath his robes as he made to address everyone.

“Our first order of business for today will be-”

“Excuse me Lord Diz, but I believe I have something that needs to be shown to the Council.” Leon produced a large stack of folders that was nearly all full of papers and placed it onto the center of the table.

“Captain?” Kairi asked, perplexed as she reached for the folder on the top of the pile. “What is all this?”

She had a right to sound as confused as she did, Leon hardly ever contributed much to any of the meetings beforehand, let alone placed his agenda above anyone else’s. Sora found himself staring at the older brunette, noticing for the first time since he had arrived that the Captain looked… worried. Leon, who always had a simple plan and an answer to almost anything looked as if he had just seen the first signs of the world ending all over again.

“You should read this first Your Majesty.” Whilst Diz returned to his chair, Leon pushed a single paper in Kairi’s direction, to which she carefully picked up and examined. “This is a screenshot from my computer when I woke up this morning.”

“You’ll have to explain this to me Captain.” The Queen stared at the image. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the implications.”

“This is what I know...” Leon stood up, brushing back a few loose bangs away from his face. “Someone has hacked into the server of our main computer here at the castle and installed up a ghost program to run behind everything else, a program that was designed to transfer data that the user wanted without us ever knowing. It was only because of this error message that I was ever alerted of it at all. I don’t know exactly how long it’s been mining data, but from what I can guess it may have been up to a few years.”

“And… what were they getting information on Captain?” Kairi bit her bottom lip.

Leon gave Aerith a sidelong glance, taking a deep breath before answering.

“They had the files of all of our refugees transferred almost as soon as they were created.”

There was a faint collective gasp that went throughout the room, even from Cid who was sitting on the absolute edge of his chair. Yen Sid bowed his head in silent contemplation and Aerith clasped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with alarm. Diz remained stoically non-responsive save for the small purse of his lips together.

Everyone knew that the refugee databank was one of the most important on the world, a wide collection of names, genders, ages, and trade skills that had all been documented at the Queen’s orders. Aerith especially lived and breathed by its contents, for it was the only way she could ever know how many people were under her protection and how many people had been lost to the Darkness since they had arrived.

“Leon… you can’t be serious…” She whispered, nearly looking like she was about to cry. “All those people… That was everything we knew about them.”

“I’m sorry.” He lowered his head in shame. “I thought that I had checked everything on the servers when we got back here. I should have been more thorough. I should have been able to see this a long time ago.”

Sora thought for the first time that he had never once seen the Captain so venerable.

“What happened here was not your fault.” Yen Sid spoke aloud in a voice that garnered everyone’s attention. “No one here would say that you have done anything to maliciously harm this world. It is by fortunate happenstance that it was brought to your attention now. This very well could have gone on for much longer.”

The consolation, while appreciated, fell on relatively deaf ears. Cloud glanced up at his partner, a brief flicker of worry crossing over his features. He had been with Leon long enough to know that the other man was obviously taking the situation extremely personally.

“Are these all the files that they took from us?” Kairi asked, pointing towards the stack of folders.

“No, Your Majesty.” Leon for a moment looked reluctant to give any more detail. “These are… Before I deleted the program I wanted to trace where it was transferring data to. I managed to hack into the source for a short amount of time before the connection was severed.”

“I'll be damned. You hacked the hacker.” Cid chuckled, fingers flicking the toothpick that was perpetually in his mouth.

“More or less you could say that. These,” Leon spread out the papers so everyone could easily reach them. “are what I could download.”

Sora reached and picked up the first stack of folders and opened it. He read the title and found it to be more familiar than he had thought they were going to be.

“This is an Ansem Report.” He stated, thumbing through the pages to glance over the contents. He knew these documents as the ones he had found in Hollow Bastion the first time he had ever set foot on the world. He'd read them, and found them oddly horrifying in how detached Ansem had been in his experimentation. There had been an untold amount of people he had killed without a second thought all in the name of finding a way to unleash total, unimaginable Darkness. The Heartless had been exact, cruel, completely merciless.

“Word for word.” Leon nodded, observing the other people at the table who also had come to the same conclusion as Sora. “You will notice that all the reports are here, unedited in any way from the ones that we have.”

Kairi placed the papers she had been holding back onto the table. She leaned all the way back into her chair, her eyes gone colder than the day she had told Sora he had to leave Riku behind. There was a light of anger in her eyes, a righteous anger that she had when it came to defending what she considered her own. Sora had known for a very long time that Kairi would stop at nothing to defend those that she felt needed her help. It was why in all the years that Hollow Bastion had been ruled by various Queens and Kings, she had quickly risen to be one of the great.

Where she met such a challenge with headstrong determination, Sora felt only a sinking hollow growing in the middle of his chest. He could see the same written all over Leon and Cloud, even Yen Sid appeared more grim than normal. 

“Who’s done this Leon?” Kairi asked with the voice of a monarch, commanding and strong. “Who are we dealing with here?”

“If we’re lucky it’s just an imitator.” Leon looked on the verge of saying something else, something of more consequence. “There’s… also more… you may want to read it for yourself.”

The Captain picked up a final folder underneath the rest of the stack and presented it to her. Kairi took it and read the first few lines aloud.

“ _‘Silver Report I._

_I have acquired a subject of the most intriguing nature to be integrated into the Project. He has already proven to have a strong inclination towards Darkness as well as having no fear of it. To the best of my research, he is the best possible candidate that I can acquire at this moment, in both body and heart._

_I have created a serum derived from pure Darkness that can be injected straight into a person’s blood stream, thus giving me control over both when and how much the subject will be forced to intake at any time. After a few treatments it should be enough to prove if he will either have the ability to absorb Darkness, or else will succumb to it. By my calculations we should know within a month what exactly his fate is to be. In either case, it should be to be the most interesting of studies._

_He has already been given the first set of injections. All there is left to do is study.’_ ”

It was as if a knife had been twisted straight into Sora’s heart.

“...Riku…” He whispered, the name he hadn’t been able to say for months slipping past his lips before he could stop it. There was no way to know for absolute certainty that it was his friend the report was referring to, but neither could he disprove it.

Kairi closed the folder in front of her, hands resting on top of it.

“Have you read this report in its entirety?” She asked starkly with no trace of emotion over her face.

“I have.” Leon replied with a grimace. “Of the nine reports, I managed to get five of them before the connection was severed. I’m afraid the atrocities only get worse with each one.”

“What has this… _imposter_ …” The Queen forced the word out through her teeth. “done?”

Leon swallowed hard and set his jaw.

“Apparently there were two subjects that were being used for this… project. Each of them were apparently forced to endure… quite a few methods of torture.”

Sora sucked in his breath and held it, the knowledge of Riku possibly having to endure endless tortures for years on end was incomprehensible. Riku, who was always headstrong and proud being experimented on, trapped and isolated from everyone he’d ever known. It wasn’t an image that Sora could envision, _wanted_ to envision. There was no way that Riku would ever allow something like that to happen to him. The Keybearer had to believe that his friend would fight until he no longer could.

“Kairi!” Sora stood up abruptly, slamming his hands against the tabletop. “We have find out where this happened! We have to see if Riku is there!”

“Sora.” Kairi looked over at him, her cold eyes softening for an instant. “You _just came back_. There’s no way to tell if any of this has anything to do with Ansem or Riku. For all we know, this is someone who has decided to carry out these experimentations based on research that he found from hacking into our system. It may be someone we’ve never heard of before.”

“But-”

“We cannot have you going after every rabbit trail for another two years.” Diz cut him off before he could say more. “There are other worlds out there that still need your help too. This kingdom needs you to be here to show the people how to defend themselves from another attack from the Darkness. You have responsibilities as a Keybearer, which means you can’t just leave every time you think you have some new information.”

“What about this though?!” Sora was almost yelling back, scrambling to grab another folder from the stack. “It says ‘Silver Report’ right here on the front!”

Kairi leveled her face with him and spoke quietly.

“There are other people with silver hair.”

The words stuck, and Sora slumped back into his seat, dropping the folder back onto the table.

There was a silence that descended on the Council, each person lost in their own deep thoughts. Cloud watched as Leon sighed heavily, head bowed as he reached out to take the report that Sora had so recklessly thrown aside. The blonde studied him, tracing over the patterns of worry written across his partner’s face and knew that there was more going on just underneath the surface of Leon’s mind. Normally the brunette did an expertly good job at keeping his feelings contained, and to the people who didn’t know him, they probably wouldn’t have seen that there was something deeply disturbing him.

“Leon and I would like to go find them. The hacker, and whoever these ‘subjects’ are.” He spoke to his liege in not an entirely disrespectful tone, bowing to her as was considered acceptable.

Both Leon and Sora instantly jerked to stare at him, silently questioning just what had made him decide to make such a declaration.

“You’re asking me to send both my Royal Gaurds on a mission away from the castle. Is this personal Captain?” Kairi quipped, lips pursed.

“No, Your Majesty.” Cloud shooked his head. “But if this is someone who succeeds in forcing people to integrate with Darkness, then there’s no stopping them from building an army with that power. We can’t let that happen. We need to be on the offensive before it is too late.”

“He speaks wisely my Queen.” Diz agreed as he tucked his hands into his sleeves. “We cannot allow a situation like this to fester.”

“Go.” Kairi commanded, her gaze stuck on the table in front of her. She stood, symbolizing that the meeting was now at an end, and everyone else rose with her. 

“Kairi…” Sora pleaded, then corrected himself. “ _Your Majesty_ , please, _please_ let me go with them. Just this one last time.”

She wouldn’t look at him, but he could see her swallowing back her apprehension.

“Find whatever you can, and procure what you’re able to. And Captain Cloud...” Kairi said without the slightest shake in her voice. “Make sure that all three of you come back no matter what.”

~❣~

Sora was already waiting for the two men by the time they made it onto the Gummi Ship.

He watched the pair enter, Cloud taking control of the helm while Leon sat to be his copilot. The Keybearer himself had been placed in charge of the cargo bay to make sure that everything was stocked and secured for the flight. Cid had made sure that the ship was packed and ready with enough supplies to last them through at least two trips there and back, as well as an array of weapons for all three of them if necessary. If Sora hadn't known better, he would have thought a small army was going to be accompanying them, rather than just three of the most powerful warriors from Hollow Bastion.

He took his seat behind the pair, watching as Cloud entered in the coordinates for their destination.

They had gotten directions from Yen Sid, who had recognized the name of the world almost immediately after reading the printed error message. He had been kind enough to give them a map, marked where he thought they would be safe enough to land, but only after giving each a fair warning.

“The Keyblade Graveyard is a desecrated place, one that I've believed for years to have been abandoned. At one time it was a sister world to this one, similar in many ways to Hollow Bastion. What you will see there is a world that should have never become what it now is. Know that whatever waits for you, nothing good has ever come from that place.”

Kairi wasn’t there to see the launch, but Aerith and Cid had made it a point to say their goodbyes. There were both hopeful, but reserved, restless at the prospect of what dangers lay ahead. However, the signal for their departure was given, and soon enough the trio were flying into the stars.

Sora unbuckled once they were out in the empty space in between the worlds, free to move about the ship as he pleased. He left the bridge and the pair of men behind, making his way to his private room where he could be alone in peace. It was quiet inside, save for the droning of the engines, and Sora laid back onto the bed, eyes half closed.

Next to him were the Silver Reports, all of the ones that Leon had procured and that the Keybearer had gathered off of the Council table before anyone could say otherwise. He looked at them, reassuring himself that this was all in the name of finding out just what had befallen to his best friend. In his heart he didn’t want to read it, choosing rather to skim through some of the lines, but knowing that he had to do at least that.

Inside were things he wished he didn’t have to know. He didn’t want to know the horror that he had left to Riku.

_...subject was injected with a standard dose, still shows no signs of either absorbing or rejecting… ...has shown a peculiar affinity to using abilities that utilize both a weapon and magic at the same time… ...heart is not ready to be given the the Gift. I have explained this in great detail to the Superior, who has yet to fully understand my work here… ...his heart remains strong, strong enough to attempt to sabotage me. Corrections will have to be made..._

Sora reached under the pillow, already knowing what he was looking for and pulled out the wooden sword, holding it up in front of his face. He traced the outlines of the wood grain with his fingertips, tears blurring his vision to the point where he could no longer discern them. It was a bittersweet memory that accompanied the sword, one that caused his tears to finally fall at last.

_“Here, go play hero with this.”_

He choked, refusing to bury his tears away in his pillow, hand still clutching the sword.

He cried knowing that he wasn’t a hero anymore.

 

Sora wouldn’t be a hero again until Riku came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who were wondering how Sora was going to be tied into this angst-train, well I hope this chapter has answered most of your questions.
> 
> Thank you to seqka711, fullmetalnation, and OroShy24 for leaving comments! Your words are a source of motivation and happiness! And to all the people have have left kudos and bookmarks, thank you as well! I really am honored every time I get a new one.
> 
> Also, a HUGE HUGE thank you to my editor Cyprus for her brutal honesty and unwavering criticisms. For all the times I have griped to her about having to rewrite/rework different parts, I mean it when I say that without her, these chapters would only be a shell of what you're reading today.
> 
>  
> 
> p.s. RIP Christopher Lee, you metal-loving, jedi wizard. You are still greatly missed.


	9. Forced Awakenings

“Level with me.”

The severity in tone with which the words were said were strong enough to cause Leon to be startled from his place in the pilot seat of the Gummi ship. He jumped a little, more than he was meaning to, and turned to face his obviously irritated partner.

“What?” He asked, rubbing his glazed eyes that had been staring for far too long at a computer screen.

Cloud’s face furrowed into a scowl of disapproval in response to the question, which was a reaction the brunette had grown fairly accustomed to on most days. Normally Leon would have dismissed the attitude for Cloud just being mildly annoyed, or perhaps a little more than that. His partner hadn’t ever been known for being the most patient of people anyway, a fact that the blonde’s colleagues and most definitely Leon himself had discovered rather quickly. However, this time it was apparent that it wasn’t just slight irritation that had caused Leon’s abrupt interruption. This time Cloud looked well and truly upset.

“You haven’t spoken to me this entire trip.” The blonde accused, the fires of anger quickly rising across his features. “Ever since we left Hollow Bastion you’ve been dead silent, wrapped up in looking at whatever has been on that damn screen the whole time. We’re going to be landing here in a few minutes, but not before you tell me what the hell is going on.”

“We’re… here?” Leon asked, perplexed and glancing over the readings on his instruments for but a brief instant to confirm his partner’s declaration.

“Yes, we’re here. And you’ve only got this once chance to convince me why we’ve traveled all the way across galaxy to find this place.”

“Cloud...” Leon muttered and could feel the impending headache of stress starting to flare. “It’s complicated.”

His partner sniffed, his voice dropping to a softer level but still maintained all of his seriousness.

“I stuck my neck out for you back in the Council meeting. I know you well enough to tell when you want to do something but you couldn’t find the right way to say it, and for some reason you wanted to go to this world. Level with me. Why?”

Leon sighed heavily, having to resist the urge to pinch at the bridge of his nose. He was equal parts thankful that his partner had taken the time to be able to read him like a book, and at the same time cursing the fact that somehow he had become so abysmally transparent. Who could have known that someone as seemingly stoic and unresponsive as Cloud would actually take the time to be aware of the subtle clues of his comrade and partner?

On any other day Leon might have actually acknowledged how much he was impressed with the blonde for acting in defense of something he hadn’t been explicitly told about. On any other day however, the brunette wouldn’t have hesitated to explain his rationale in the first place. This time however there was no getting around the fact that his partner was absolutely not going to budge an inch unless Leon gave him what he wanted. With a heavy sigh and a few clicks Leon brought the saved version of the Silver Report up and onto the screen in front of them.

The answer that Cloud so desperately was wanting lay inside of the contents of the documents that the brunette had so carefully stored and spent as much time as he could analysing. Leon had read and reread almost all of the lines at least twice, taking special care to notice any changes that differentiated one part of the document from another. He had looked for patterns in the words, tried to discern if there had been any telltale signs of who all had been involved in the making of the Silver Reports.

Leon knew exactly what he sought after for as he scrolled, the lines themselves had been burned so well into his memory he could almost quote them word for word.

“Because of this.” He replied, stopping and highlighting a portion of the text with his cursor before reading it aloud. “ _‘It has come to my attention that the subject has already been touched by Darkness before. There is a mark, an imprint of it hidden under a bandana on his wrist.’_ ”

“I don’t understand.” Cloud shook his head, staring at the words as if they would somehow answer him all on their own.

“Do you remember the kid who went missing a year ago?” Leon asked, not realizing that his breath had become shorter.

“Barely.” The blonde confessed. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

“I… When we talked to him that day, I remember him having some kind of cloth tied around his wrist…”

Guilt twisted Leon’s features so strongly that he had to turn away. He couldn’t stand to look into his partner’s blue eyes with the knowledge of how he had never forgiven himself for not finding Hope after their one fateful encounter. There had been no trace of the boy that had ever been recovered and yet all possibilities of him becoming a Heartless had been ruled out. If such an event had occurred, someone would have definitely come across whatever the kid had turned into, especially over the course of a year.

Yet there had been nothing. For all anyone knew Hope had simply vanished, and as such almost everyone just assumed that he had just gone off to die somewhere alone. There were plenty of niche places in Hollow Bastion where it would be almost impossible to search and even if they were to find Hope’s remains anywhere, it certainly wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

“Leon whatever happened to him wasn't your fault.” Cloud made the same point he'd been steadfastly upholding ever since the day the boy had gone missing. He scooted his chair closer by mere breathes in a small display of comfort, hands placed on top of his partner’s knees. “We made the best decision we could at the time. You and I could both tell there was something wrong with him and we did what we were supposed to do. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“Doesn't excuse our behavior towards him. We could have- should have helped more.”

Cloud snorted in discontent but didn’t press the issue further. Leon had been with him long enough to know that the blonde was by no means convinced, but had instead chosen to let this particular set of demons lie. If there was one thing to say about Cloud was that while he may have been quick to become agitated, there were times that he was almost unsettlingly good at knowing how to avoid an impending argument.

“If you're right, then you'll get your chance to make it up to him.” The blonde shrugged nonchalantly, as if it were all as simple as he made it sound.

“That's assuming that I'm right.” Leon looked once again back to the computer. “I should have said something at the meeting about all this, but I didn’t have the heart to say anything in front of Sora.”

“That what? You don't think his friend is there?”

Leon nodded solemnly.

“That we've brought him all this way for nothing.”

~❣~

As the ship landed on the Keyblade Graveyard, the only thought that Sora’s mind could focus on was that Riku needed him.

All the worlds may have given up on him, may have written him off as a failure, betrayer, and deserter, but Sora never would. It didn't matter what anyone said, what anyone tried to convince him of, Riku was first and foremost his best friend and friends would never leave the other to suffer. Sora had come to believe that everyone, no matter how strong or how proud they were, needed a protector. Even the best may fall, and sometimes getting back up is near impossible to do alone.

Sora would _not_ let him down.

The Keybearer sped across the castle courtyard, entirely heedless of the two older men who followed as quickly as they could in his wake. He was anxious, nervous about who or what he could find in this forsaken castle and he could feel it manifesting in his palms and gradually working its way up through his arms in a cold, clammy sensation. Ignoring it had proven to be next to impossible the closer he got to the premises where he was convinced that his friend had been kept prisoner. His hands were shaking as he pulled at the large doors that led inside.

This had become his best chance, the most promising of leads he’d ever had and yet somehow Sora couldn’t quite come to terms with the prospect that there may not be anything at all to come of it. He refused to accept another failure. This had to work or otherwise Kairi would probably never, or barely ever, allow him to conduct searches again. This had to work because after this, Sora had nowhere else to look.

“Sora! Don't forget that this is firstly a recon mission, everything else after that is a secondary objective.” Leon called out to him, holding onto the grip of the gunblade on his back as he ran.

“I know.” The Keyblade Wielder murmured and found himself having to use almost all of his weight to even get the solid stone doors to barely move. The two men both helped him once they finally caught up, and it took all three simultaneously straining to manage to open them enough for the warriors to have enough access to get inside.

“Doors like this were made for keeping people out.” Cloud observed, sliding in between the gap they had created only after the others had already entered.

“Or keeping something in.” Leon spoke and cast a sidelong glance at his partner that went otherwise unnoticed by their third companion.

The inside proved to be much more immense than Sora had anticipated. He stopped, frozen before what appeared to be an altar of Light and Darkness, knowing that time was against them from the moment they had arrived. His visits to other worlds had taught him the value of being able to search a place quickly and efficiently, with the most likely place of finding anything being a holding cell or other secure chamber. Riku was prisoner and Sora very much doubted that he made a very compliant one.

“Where is he?” He asked aloud to the pair of twin statues on either side of the foyer as if somehow they would magically be able to answer him.

“Sora.” Leon walked up from behind him to place a gentle yet guiding hand on his shoulder.

“We have to split up.” The youth declared resolutely, turning to face his two companions. “The fastest way to find Riku is if we all search different areas.”

“That would leave us too venerable.” Cloud shook his head and frowned deeply. “If any one of us gets attacked we’ll be isolated from the others. If there is anyone still here they could already be aware of our presence in this place. We can’t risk them having the upper hand.”

“Cloud’s right, we need to stay together and find the transmission source first.” Leon agreed, pointing up the stairs that appeared to lead into the furthest part of the castle. “After that we can search about and see who’s still around.”

“I’m not waiting while you try to find out what’s on the computers here!” Sora protested angrily, twisting to dislodge his shoulder away from Leon’s grasp and backing away. He felt the warmth of anger rise up along his neck, which was only spurred onward from the indifferent expressions on the Royal Guard’s faces. “They could be long gone by the time you’re done, and by then we won’t be find them again. You guys go look for whatever it is you think you’re going to find here, I’m going to go find the dungeons.”

“Sora.” Leon sounded mildly exasperated, but more tired than anything. “Cloud and I are both the leaders on this mission and if we tell you to stay with us, then that’s what you’re going to do. We’ve got to prioritize what it is we’re doing here, or otherwise this will be a dead end for all of us. Just do as we say or-”

“Or what?” The Keybearer challenged, more than tempted to start a fight right then and there.

“Don't do this.” Cloud glared, feet shuffling along the floor as he dropped into a more defensive stance, his hand sliding towards the hilt of his sword.

“I’m not letting anything stop me.” Sora retorted back, seconds away from summoning his own weapon. “I don’t care what anyone says. If Riku is here then I’m going to-”

A voice cut in from beyond the three travelers. A voice that Sora knew better than the sound of his own beating heart.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Time stopped.

Time had to have stopped because for a second Sora swore he wasn't on the same world anymore. He distinctly heard the sounds of waves crashing along the shoreline accompanied by the laughter of him and his friends. He whirled around to see from where the voice had originated, and somehow he had become transported back to when he had just been a kid, a scrawny little mess of hair and uncoordinated limbs that somehow managed to cause him more problems than he thought it was worth. Riku had never been like that. He had somehow always seemed to have everything under control even when they were young.

Sora shook his head and had to remind himself that this wasn’t their island however. He blinked rapidly as the colors of the waves changed from deep sparkling blue into the dusty, disused colors of the Graveyard Castle interior. Life stood still as everything about Sora became muted and the sounds all about him disintegrated into nothing, hushed by the all-consuming silence. All that there was left was the sound of the Keybearer breathing deeply and then holding it, staring at the form of his friend and hoping, hoping that all of this was real. This had to be Riku, his lost friend, the one he cherished and the one who needed him more than he had ever admitted to.

The same Riku who stood in front of them now, taller, a little broader and somehow more… imposing. Almost everything about his physique had changed to some degree, made him appear stronger, faster, deadlier. Two years had changed them both, but for Riku, it was obvious that he had spent a majority of his time fine tuning his already formidable set of skills.

“You shouldn’t be here. No one else should be here.” The silver haired youth approached warily, taking his steps with slow, calculated movements. “You need to leave.”

“Riku!” Sora screamed, his eyes already felt the pinpricks of tears from happiness. “Riku you’re here!”

He started forward, intent on clinging onto his friend and proving that none of this had actually been nothing but a dream. Too many times he’d thought about this moment, had envisioned all the possible scenarios that could have possibly happened that would have led up to this point. Sora felt a calming sense of relief to know that he had finally reached the end of his journey. The worst was over and done, a dark chapter that could be forever stored away and forgotten about in his life.

Then Cloud stopped him with a hand squarely on the middle of his chest.

“Don’t.” The blonde warned, voice gravelly and eyes fixed on person in front of them. “Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean something’s wrong?!” Sora was taken aback, shocked and unprepared for someone that he thought was his friend to deny him. He grabbed at Cloud’s wrist and fought to break free, too confused to try and work out the warning. “This is Riku! It’s Riku! He’s really here!”

“Cloud’s right. Something’s off.” Leon’s gaze was also staring at the youth but he made no other move. It didn’t take much to look at his face and tell that something about the situation had tipped him off as well.

Sora tried to shake loose, tried to overpower the blonde warrior as if somehow he would have been able to wrestle himself free. In another lifetime of nothing but rigorous training, he might have had a chance, might have somehow slipped out of Cloud’s grasp by simply being the faster of the two. If he had kept doing everything his friends had encouraged him to, subjected himself to a stricter regiment of learning how to fight better over the course of the last year, then it may not have been any trouble. However, over the last two years, Sora had decided that training took secondary precedence in his life. 

“You need to leave, now.” The youth in front of them stopped short a few paces away. He appeared wary, but curious enough to grant them an audience with him despite how he could have chosen to run away at any given time.

“Who are you?” Cloud snapped back at him, putting himself further in front of the Keybearer and in between the two. “Why are you here?”

“What do you mean by that!?” Sora yelled, breathing heavily and nearly on the verge of tears. “This is Riku! This is my friend! We came all the way here to find him.”

The youth leveled his gaze at the three, storm blue eyes shimmering in the low light.

“I am sorry, but I believe you have the wrong person. I am not Riku, my name is Terra and I live here in this castle.”

Sora felt like the air had been sucked right out of his lungs.

“You live here? Alone?” Leon questioned evenly, displaying no emotion other than critical observation.

“I… live here with my Master. Master Xehanort.” The youth began to look uncomfortable and his fingers fidgeted towards something Sora couldn’t see along his collarbone.

“Where is he?”

“He’s away on business. I suggest you leave before he comes back.”

Sora felt his voice cracking before he actually spoke, could feel the cold sweat of fear beginning to rise.

“Riku… But you’re… Riku.” He stumbled and fell to his knees all with Cloud still guarding his every move. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Sora. We… we grew up together.”

“I’m sorry.” The youth whispered softly, refusing even then to look the Keybearer in the eye. “My name is Terra, and I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“What do you mean…” Sora sank further to the floor, his mind going blank as he searched for what he could possibly say to change the apparent lack of his friend’s memory. “You have to be Riku.”

“I’m sorry.”

Leon stepped forward and cut in with a question of his own.

“What do you know about this?” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a few papers that Sora knew could only have been the Silver Reports, holding them out for the other youth to take. “Are you the one these documents were talking about?”

The youth took them silently, his expression unreadable as he glanced over the contents.

“I don’t… remember any of this.”

“Try.” Cloud commanded.

“You need to leave.” The statement sounded even more desperate and there was a mounting terror in the storm blue eyes accompanied by a small inflection of his voice. “Master Xehanort told me that no one should ever be here aside from him and myself. If you don’t leave right now, I… I will have to force you out.”

Both Royal Captains stiffened, each fully understanding just exactly what the youth was implying. Sora tried not to gasp, watching in horror as the three others about him fell into battle ready stances, all of them alerted and on a hair-trigger. It wouldn’t take much to set any one of them off now that the threat had been made. Neither Leon nor Cloud would stand for it.

“Please don’t…” Sora whispered, his throat so tight that he was unable to speak any louder than that.

“We can get you out.” Cloud offered to the youth one last time, fingers curling around the handle of his sword. “Whatever has been done to you can be undone, but not if you don’t come with us.”

There was a flicker, a change in color from blue to green then back again in Riku’s eyes that was so fast Sora couldn’t have been sure it even happened. The youth was heaving, shoulders slouched forward as he seemed to struggle within himself. As much as he appeared to be stronger than ever before, whatever was going on inside his mind had caused him to become fragile and disoriented. He spoke aloud, more to himself than anyone, breath shuddering as he brought his hands to his face.

“I… don’t… I don’t know what’s going on here… I don’t remember anything from before when I woke up. Master… Xehanort… warned me that seeing other people could make my memories unstable. That’s why I’ve been kept here alone. I don’t want to be alone… But I can’t leave.”

He took one step back, and that was all that was needed for Cloud to send one of his swords hurling across the room and into the archway of the opposing hall, effectively causing the wall the crumble and block off the youth’s main escape route.

“Don’t fight him!” Sora jumped up and screamed, reaching to grab at the blonde’s arm.

“He was going to make a run for it.” Cloud accused, his face twisted in anger. “Do you want to have to chase after him through this whole damn castle?”

Sora didn’t have a chance to protest further before Leon’s voice cried out their only warning.

“Down!” The brunette yelled as a dark pulse of energy went sailing past the two other’s heads. They ducked reflexively, though Sora didn’t have nearly as much to be concerned about having been much shorter than Cloud in height. He winced, feeling the shockwaves of impact that decimated the wall behind them and knew that if his friend had actually wanted it to hit them, it would have. Riku never missed that badly whenever he was actually fighting. It had been a warning shot, and a fairly convincing one at that.

“Leave. Now!” The youth was reeling, holding onto his right wrist as if it somehow, inexplicably pained him. He spoke with a certain level of terror, and Sora instinctually knew just what sort of opponent they would be dealing with.

The most dangerous kind. The kind that had been backed into a corner.

“He has no weapon.” Leon mutter softly, just loud enough for his two companions to hear. “If he did he would have drawn it by now. Instead he’s going to use anything else that he can, and that makes him by far more of a threat.”

“Now or never Sora.” Cloud stood up tall once again but this time positioning another one of his swords as a shield in front of him. “You either help us, or stay the hell out of the way.”

Sora ground his teeth together, wishing that there was any other method to persuade Riku to come back to Hollow Bastion with them. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. Sora recognized the differences, knew that everything had gone sideways and there was no fixing it now. Whatever happy reunion that the Keybearer had thought was going to happen disappeared the moment that Ansem had taken Riku away. This was the new reality. This what was Riku needed him for, and Sora couldn’t allow himself to back down now.

They’d fought once before, and now they would have to do it again. Sora summoned forth his Keyblade, the manifestation of the Light that dwelt within himself and swore that he was only going to use violence because it was the last resource he had left. One way or another, Riku was going to come home.

When it came to combat, Leon and Cloud had made it their personal mission to work their best in tandem with each other, and those skills proved themselves as they began their attack with only a nod of understanding before rushing forward. They moved around each other effortlessly, wordlessly, a true display of their keen skills and years unyielding of practice. Each of them flanked the youth simultaneously, hoping to catch him off guard with their assault. It was a tactic that should have worked on most normal enemies. On enemies that hadn't had their whole lives to prepare.

Riku had always been fast, but now he moved as if he were made out of air itself. He dashed, phasing past them and hurling himself in the opposite direction all while avoiding multiple blades that surely would have cut him open otherwise. Darkness followed in his wake like a smoke, trailing behind as a blatant sign from where he was drawing his power. He alighted, somewhat stiffly, as if somehow he were using muscles he hadn't planned on utilizing. Sora could hear him panting, working for each breath of air that was the only indication that the cost of using such power proved more than he let on.

The Darkness within the youth was taking a toll, and who knew how much it had already taken from him. Sora, despite all the experiences he’d had in his life had learned nothing about controlling such power, or even how to channel it. Everything he had been taught, everything he had ever known about Darkness was that it existed solely to consume everything around it. If somehow it failed, if by some miracle one could survive an encounter with it, all it meant was that the Darkness would only try to find another weakness to exploit.

Sora had to stop him before that happened.

“Riku! Please, you have to come with us!” The Keybearer cried out, hurling himself forward with his Keyblade at the ready. He was fully prepared to do whatever that was needed to win, to prove that his convictions were stronger than whatever had caused his friend’s mind to become so fragmented.

Two moves. All it took was two moves and the youth sent Sora flying back, his body smashing into the legs of the statue he’d been admiring only a few minutes earlier. If the breath hadn’t been knocked out of him he would have screamed on the impact, crumpling into a heap on the marble flooring. He coughed, hoping that _all_ of his ribs weren’t cracked somehow, wheezing as he struggled to pull himself up.

“Get out of here!” The youth yelled, almost flailing as he threw his arms open and drew every ounce of dark energies into himself. He took a few steps forward into the middle of the hall and then released it suddenly, causing every source of light within to be rendered inept.

The Darkness descended so thickly that Sora couldn’t see anything at all. He hacked out whatever was left in his lungs and reached blindly for his Keyblade, having dropped it when he had been sent hurling away. It shimmered at his touch, its light faint but enough to pierce through the blackness that was so dense he could barely make anything else out. What little bit of space it illuminated flickered before Sora’s eyes, weak but growing slowly, responding to the emotional state of his will. 

From beyond in the Darkness came the sounds of what Sora could only guess was Cloud still pressing forward to attack. Tempered metal smashed through stone floors and walls, grating and shattering everything that came between the Captain and his target. The blackness didn’t stop someone like Cloud, who had spent his whole life learning not only how to fight against it, but how to destroy it from within. What advantage Riku had hoped to exploit by hindering their vision was clearly useless in regards to him.

Sora dragged the Light out of his Keyblade, throwing it upward to shine down on all of them and caught glimpses of Leon, still on the outskirts of the fight and looking concerned not only for his own safety but also for his partner.

Cloud swung downward, destroying the floor underneath him and narrowly missing Riku by a few breaths margin before the silver haired youth managed to phase away. The youth used the motion to kick the blonde’s legs out from under him, Darkness curling around his hands and up his arms as he soundly struck the older man in the jaw. The blonde howled in pain, returning a blow of his own that sent Riku sprawling away, skidding towards the other side of the hall. Both of the combatants were panting, exerting everything they had just to keep even with each other.

“They’re going to kill each other.” Leon walked over to help the Keybearer up, keeping his eyes fixed on the fight the entire time. He stated the fact calmly, but Sora could see the lines of worry forming around the corners of his eyes.

“This isn’t right.” Sora protested feebly. “I know Riku, and this isn’t like him at all. Something… something’s wrong. How do we stop them?”

“I’m not sure if this will work...” Leon shook his head and then raised his voice that sliced like a knife through all noise around them. “Terra! Terra just answer me this one question. Where’s Hope? Is Hope here with you?”

The silver haired youth froze, went still as if he had just been rendered completely immobile. He tensed in horror, or maybe it was shock, gone rigid and unresponsive as stone.

Sora groaned, ignoring the blossoming pain in his back and shoulders and hobbled a little to close the distance between the two of them so he could reach out to grab his friend’s limp hand.

Their eyes met. For the first time in two years and Sora saw in Riku’s green eyes a welling of tears that could only have come from a wound deep within his heart. Never before had Sora seen something so raw, so tortured as what he saw written across his best friend’s face then. He was a bit taken aback, always used to seeing the prideful, confident friend back from Destiny Islands. Now… now it was as if he was staring at an entirely different person.

“Riku…” He reached upward to brush the tears away, his fingers barely touching his feathery silver bangs. “Riku what happened?”

“He’s... dead.” His friend finally whimpered, shuddering so deeply that he looked on the verge of collapse. “He’s dead and it’s all my fault.”

“Who’s-”

“Hope’s dead!” Riku screamed and the Darkness began to churn and swirl about him. Sora could feel the rising surge of energy, could feel the pull of something by far stronger than himself that wanted nothing more than to rip his still living heart out of his body. It was an anguished, heedless anger that spurred his best friend’s power to rise to an ever greater ferocity, threatening to destroy all that was nearby. It took everything Sora could do to withstand it, but he wouldn’t let go no matter what sort of attack the youth would decide to employ.

This was Riku’s final move, the last attempt of a desperate, cornered being.

Sora braced himself, shielding his face from the rising gale of Darkness and wondered if there was any way he could pull them both to safety before it was too late. He was just about to try, when from behind the silver haired youth Cloud materialized out of the miasma. The man lifted his arm, bringing it down and rendered Sora’s friend unconscious with a swift, but firm blow to the head. Riku crumpled, completely unaware of the Captain’s presence, too distraught and distracted by his own internal misery. He gasped as he fell into a boneless mass straight into Sora’s arms.

“You didn’t have to do that!” The Keybearer hissed, breathing hard and struggling to hold up the dead weight he’d been so ungraciously left with. “He would have come with us!”

“Not in any reasonable amount of time.” The blonde shouldered his blade and waved away the dissipating mist of Darkness that had surrounded them. “Go back to the ship with him, now. And do not leave for any reason until Leon and I get back.”

Sora granted him one last look before shouldering his burden, half-dragging and half-carrying his best friend out of the castle and former prison.

The Keybearer slowly made his way across the courtyard, pausing only when the weight became too much for him to bear alone. Riku didn’t stir through any of it, but Sora was comforted by the fact that he could still hear his calm, shallow breaths. He studied the youth when he could, trying to unravel secrets of what exactly had happened in the two years that they had been apart. There was nothing for him to immediately deduce however, no visible trace that offered up even a clue. He would have to wait until Riku woke up before they began to set things right.

For now though, he was safe. Sora sighed in relief after he had deposited the youth onto his own bed, wondering just how long it would be before Cloud and Leon returned. He contemplated contacting Hollow Bastion, letting Kairi know what all had occurred and who exactly they had found. The more he thought about it though, the more he dismissed the idea. She could be one of the ones to discover what had happened just like everyone else.

Now there was just Riku and him. Him, a Keybearer and self-proclaimed guardian of Light who decided then and there that he would never lose his best friend to Darkness again.

His mission was accomplished. His goal had finally been found. Yet from the earlier sight of the tears pouring down Riku’s face, all that Sora felt was a distinct and gnawing pit growing inside his gut that told him that something was still very wrong.

~❣~

Outside of the medical ward of the Hollow Bastion castle wasn’t the best place to have any sort of meeting, but the events that had transpired at the Graveyard Castle had forced circumstances beyond Queen Kairi’s control.

“He’s been asleep the whole time.” Leon was the first to offer up intel, bowing as his liege strode into their presence. “The doctors aren’t sure if his refusal to wake up is self induced, or if there is something else that won’t allow him to.”

“Tell me everything we know about him.” Kairi walked up to the one-way mirror that separated the room that Riku was being held in from the rest of them. She stared through it, passively observing the two youths within. Sora, who had refused to leave Riku’s side throughout the entire trip back and even when the medical team had arrived to examine him. Then of course there was her lost friend himself, looking more like he was in a coma than a fairytale slumber.

“Don’t you want to go see him first?” Cid asked, sniffing and cocking his head in bewilderment.

“I will, when it’s time.” She replied, her lavender eyes softening as she turned to face her advisors. “It doesn’t do any good for me to be in there with them right now. Whatever tortures he’s experienced underneath Ansem aren’t going to disappear just because he’s been rescued. If those reports we read beforehand were true about him, then I need to know what kind of situation we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

“The doctors are fairly sure that he will be awake sometime soon.” Diz nodded and bowed generously, the fabric of his robes rustling at his movement. “Physically, he’s in the prime of his life. As far as they could tell he has sustained no permanent or crippling injuries that will hinder him. If anything, he’s more of a threat now than he ever was before.”

“And the Darkness that was injected into him?” Kairi frowned deeply, a pained expression written across her face.

“I… went to see if there was anything I could do.” Aerith mournfully shook her head as she spoke, clasping her hands together in front of her. “The Darkness inside him… it’s ingrained fully into his heart and body. I don’t think there’s anything out there that could cleanse him of it.”

“So he’s a being of Darkness then.” The Queen shut her eyes at the thought, willing away the stirring emotions of sorrow and anger that would otherwise have impaired her judgement. Riku was her friend, maybe for not as long as he had known Sora, but he still held a place of special significance in her heart. She couldn’t fathom what all had been done to him to cause the state that he was currently in.

“Actually, he isn’t. At least, not in the way you would think he would be.” Aerith appeared a bit hopeful, Kairi noted, even if it was only for her benefit.

“What do you mean?”

“For all the Darkness inside of him, he hasn’t actually fallen to it. It’s strange but, most other people with the same amount would have definitely had their hearts consumed and turned Heartless. But he’s not. Somehow he’s living with it, in a sort of equilibrium, as far as I can tell. He can’t overcome it, but neither can it overcome him.”

“The important question is, what could tip the scales?” Diz asked, his golden eye staring through the glass at the youth on the medical bed.

“It’s impossible to say.” Aerith admitted sullenly. “Without knowing everything that happened to him, there’s a possibility that something or even someone could set him off.”

“He’s a time bomb then.” Cid swallowed a piece of the toothpick he had been chewing on while he swiped at his nose with the back of his hand.

“That’s… one way of looking at it I suppose.”

The Council members fell silent for a moment, all thinking, all pondering that which was morally acceptable versus their own sense of self preservation. It was a choice that was nearly impossible to make, and one that Kairi couldn’t do without serious contemplation. The thought of sending Riku away would undoubtedly mean that Sora would follow. Their friendship was too strong for the Keybearer to abandon him, even if it meant for the good of the kingdom. There was also the threat of not knowing exactly how and if the other youth would ever be used as a weapon against her world.

As the saying went, an enemy you know is by far less menacing than the one that you don’t.

“Tell me about what he was like when you found him Captains.” The Queen beckoned to her otherwise silent guards. “How did he behave before you brought him here?”

The two looked at each other, and as she expected it was Leon who was the first to speak.

“Scared.” The brunette said slowly, choosing his words with care. “He didn’t know who he was or how he came to be there. He insisted that he didn’t recognize Sora and even called himself by a different name. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t want us to be there, and he was willing to use dark powers to try and get us to leave.”

“It could have been a result of the trauma.” Aerith softly offered her opinion. “Maybe he decided to disassociate himself from what happened by taking on a different identity.”

“But he was willing to draw on Darkness to fight.” Diz countered, sneering with one hand curling into a tight fist. “That there proves that he could be a menace at any time. We should get rid of him, and quickly. Before he’s awake and he ends up destroying half the castle trying to stop us.”

“We are _not_ killing him.” Kairi glared at her trusted advisor, spitting her words out like venom. “He is my friend and by royal decree all those who seek safe haven here at Hollow Bastion are to be granted sanctuary. As long as Riku wants to be kept safe here, he will be. Do you understand?”

It was almost as if she could see the fury within Diz rising with each passing word that came from her lips. He stood up taller, shoulders back, though he didn’t have much to contend with the two warriors that stood at her back

“You’re letting the wolf run free in the sheep pen.” He sneered, the malicious tone in his voice was unmistakable.

“My people have teeth of their own Lord Diz.” The Queen walked straight up to him, matching his own stare without any sort of falter. “And I wouldn’t suggest _ever_ calling them sheep again.”

Her advisor opened his mouth as if to speak once more, apparently thought better of it, then spun on his heel to abruptly stalk away. Kairi didn’t stop him, but watched his every move until he was out of sight. From the rest of her Council, Cid and Aerith shifted their heels along the ground uncomfortably. Even her Captains appeared a bit ill at ease.

“If I may, your Majesty.” Cloud finally broke the silence, trying to appear as unassuming as possible. “Allowing him access to any part of this world could potentially cause more trouble than it’s worth.”

“I know that.” Kairi sighed heavily as she replied. “That’s why he won’t be able to leave the castle grounds under any circumstances. He’ll be kept here, on a short leash, where we can always have eyes on him. That is, at least, until we can rid him of his Darkness.”

Her Council members nodded their agreement, all knowing that their Queen’s mind had been well and truly decided. No personal opinions of theirs would be enough to change hers.

“At least,” Cid raised an eyebrow, motioning toward the room with whom most of their conversation had been about. “we know someone who will be the first babysitting volunteer.”

~❣~

Riku awoke to the smell of sand.

It didn’t take much observation to tell that he was in yet another pure white laboratory, most likely another one of Ansem’s many testing rooms that he kept spared away depending on what he needed them for. Where the Heartless himself was though, the youth only knew that the man couldn’t be too far away. Riku winced, knowing that almost every time that he ended up in one of these facilities, Ansem had made it a point to make to demonstrate his dominance in one way or another. It couldn’t be denied that the Heartless had a tendency to be a bit theatrical, but that didn’t stop the impending sense of dread. Waking up in one of these places was almost a guarantee that some amount of pain was to come of it.

The youth shuddered, realizing that for once he wasn’t strapped down to anything and wondered to himself if there would be any way of escaping from the room before Ansem or something else exclusively loyal to him found the youth missing. There would certainly be hell to pay if and when he was caught, but in that moment all he could think about was how much he didn’t want any more of the cold or the pain. He had lived with the knowledge that there was a force inside of him that wanted to devour him from the inside out for too long, and despite whether or not Ansem was there with him, Riku was willing to take his chances to try circumvent what had been inevitable ever since he’d been captured.

He was done blindly following orders. All of the things that had once held meaning and gave value to his life had been stripped away, discarded as if they had been worth nothing all along. Riku didn’t feel brave, or even contemptuous, but simply resigned to the fact that another day of living alongside the Master of Darkness was more than he was willing to bear.

“You’re… awake…!” A voice exclaimed, surprising him not by the fact that he had heard it, but by whom it belonged to.

“No…” He nearly shrieked, feeling like his was about to jump out of his own skin as his gaze fell upon blue eyes as clear as the afternoon sky. Sora was on the other side of the room from him, sprawled along a couch against the wall and looking as if he too had been resting. “No… No!! Not him! Please!”

Riku fell out of the bed less than gracefully, clamoring to put any distance that he took between himself and the phantom of his past. His heart was hammering inside of his chest along with a cold sweat of fear that gripped at him like a vice. He hit the floor hard, not feeling any of it, and scrambled in an attempt to flee as quickly as he could. It didn’t matter where and it didn’t matter how. Above all else he knew that he needed to leave.

“Riku! Wait, it’s me!” Sora leapt towards him, presumably to try and catch his fall. The brunette youth knelt before him, catching his shoulders and staring at him as if he were some kind of frightened animal. “I’m here.”

“Not him!” The silver haired youth was whimpering, shivering so badly that his teeth began to chatter. “Anyone but him! Please I’ll do anything… Let Sora go.”

There was chaos in Sora’s blue eyes, a lack of understanding of anything Riku had been pleading for.

“Riku… It’s me Sora. It’s alright. You’re safe.” His voice dropped to a more soothing level and still he sought to close the distance between them. Maybe he thought that proximity would help calm him down. Maybe he didn’t know what else to do. “Don’t you remember? We rescued you.”

There was a part of Riku that felt like he was going to hurl. He couldn’t tell if it was the fear, or the sensation of Sora holding so firmly onto his skin but all he knew was that it was something he couldn’t endure. He couldn’t cry. Couldn’t show any other emotion other than stark terror and a blank stare that exuded the chill he felt from within.

“Where’s Ansem?” He asked without letting his voice break, not believing for a second that Sora’s words could have actually been true.

“He’s gone.” His best friend answered, seeming more pleased about the fact than was by any means acceptable. “Cloud and Leon searched over the entire castle and found nothing there. Well, nothing other than the computer data which Leon wanted in the first place. We left and brought you here, to Hollow Bastion. You’ve been sleeping for two days.”

The more Riku looked around, the less it appeared like the Graveyard Castle. There was a warmth here that hadn’t be present beforehand, as if the light here was stronger or the colors more vivid. Either it was a very good ruse, or Sora was actually telling the truth.

“Promise...” He flinched when his friend shifted his legs just a little. The sick feeling came back to him in a wave, and he struggled to ignore it. Talking to his friend was by far more important. “Promise me that you haven’t been captured.”

“Me?” Sora looked genuinely confused as he tilted his head to the side. “No! I told you, Ansem’s gone. Probably far away from here.”

“He’s gone…” Riku murmured the words, curling in on himself. There was no feeling that accompanied them, but maybe that would come in time. He didn’t ever really expect one day for him to wake up and the nightmare to be over. Hadn’t really thought that returning to a life outside of the Graveyard had been more than latent wishes made to forces that no longer acknowledged his existence.

Sora was here though, holding onto his friend as if he would disappear into thin air if he ever let go.

“It’s going to be ok.” Sora nodded, his belief resonating in the sound of his voice. “I’m not ever going to lose you again.”

~❣~

Not even the history books in the great library of the Graveyard Castle knew of what lay underneath its stone foundations.

There was only one who knew of its existence, and Ansem preferred to keep it that way. Granted, others had probably speculated about what lay within. Even a cunning entity such as Xemnas was most likely aware of its necessity, would have even encouraged its development if he had been so informed, but the Heartless had remained close-lipped since the dawn of its conception. Even if the worlds had all come to an end, if all their plans unraveled before their very eyes, Ansem still would never speak a word about it.

If their plotting was a game, and their followers their pieces, then this, this was the gamemakers paradise.

There was no light because Ansem didn’t need it to see where he was going. The route to the underground was littered with traps, some set by him, others left over from its construction and he avoided them all with ease. His steps were sure, his resolve unwavering even as the darkness enclosed around him. He embraced it and molded it, using its powers to guide him the rest of the way, through hidden tunnels and secret entrances until he finally came to a plain wooden door at the bottom of a stairwell.

An ordinary iron key unlocked it, the door creaking as Ansem entered into what appeared to be an otherwise bottomless oblivion.

“You’re in here.” He called out and was answered by an unfathomable amount of pairs of bright yellow eyes. The Master of Darkness moved through them and they parted, a sea of silent beings that moved seamlessly in his wake. “I know you’re in here.”

One pair of eyes remained resolute against the backdrop of darkness, standing firm as the man slowly made his way and approached it.

“You’re stronger than you were before.” Ansem noted once he reached the solitary Heartless, pacing around it with his hands behind his back and scrutinizing it from every angle. “I must say that I am quite pleased with the result.”

The Heartless before him bowed deeply, its hisses the only language that it was able to communicate in.

“Quite pleased.” Ansem laughed aloud, his voice echoing over the tens of thousands of Heartless surrounding him. “Now your true training shall begin.”

~❣~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Where did this last month and a half go?
> 
> I'm going to do my best to try and stick to a stricter schedule for the remainder of this story. I realize that it was a very long time to wait in between updates, and from a commitment standpoint it's pretty unacceptable. And once again I apologize to those that may have thought that I had forgotten/given up on this. I promise that isn't the case at all.
> 
> So good to hear from Uturuncu again btw! Your comments still make me smile.


	10. A Moment of Weakness

There was no fight left in him.

Despite knowing that it was a dream that tormented him, it didn’t change the fact that it still felt incredibly, undeniably real. By the scent alone he knew that it was Ansem’s hands that touched him. Ansem, who in every aspect was all-encompassing.

“Don't shy away from me pet. I've always given you exactly what you wanted.”

Musk and ash. Gloved fingers that moved sure and steady, pressing, kneading wherever they desired. How could he have ignored it? His body certainly never wanted to. In all the time he had been captured he’d never once been successful in resisting. Eventually he always caved under, because no matter how hard he could have fought, Ansem would always have a way to counter him.

How could he ignore it though when the Heartless took careful measures to make sure that he would perpetually be at a disadvantage?

Wrists bound behind him with what felt like cord or maybe something thicker, Riku tested to see if by someway he could break free. One wouldn’t have originally guessed it but Ansem was an expert in his methodical way of looping, tying, and strengthening those knots. This was something that had become quickly revealed within the youth’s stay at the Graveyard Castle. What Riku’s fingertips could grasp couldn’t be unraveled no matter which direction he attempted to dislodge it. The cord was interwoven, a fearsome entanglement that held him as part of its own. The youth closed his eyes, still and limp because the less he moved the less torment he would have to endure.

For all the times he’d told his captive that struggling was pointless, the man always seemed eager to watch Riku try. Power, loss of control, was what Ansem savored most, relished it like it was some sort of delicacy that he could never get enough of.

“Come now pet. Show me how much you truly want this.”

A part of him wanted to spit at the man, instead he strained at his bonds then as he tried to twist his shoulders and wrists in any direction possible to try and somehow break free. Futile, but then again, it was his dream. As much as he should have felt empowered in the knowledge, it was desperation that overcame him. Desperation to do anything to escape the inescapable.

Hands and fingers clawed their way over him, teeth grazing sensitive areas all while a panic built up in his chest. The more the seconds passed the greater his anxiety rose until he feared he would be consumed by it. This wasn’t like before where he had chosen to endure it. This time was just for the torture of it all. For Ansem’s will and his will alone.

“You know you’d think he actually doesn’t want to be here with as much as he’s trying to get away.” Another voice that Riku knew all too well chimed in from behind Ansem’s back.

Eyes wide and his skin cold as ice, he looked upon Hope for the first time since the fateful evening where he had been tested and saw a boy who appeared as lost and forsaken as himself.

“Perhaps more pressure…” Ansem sneered as his hands wrenched at the youth’s flesh, eliciting a high and pitiful whine from his captive. “Ah, there. Much better.”

“Did you always make him sound like this?” Hope asked while Riku fought to hold back the tears he felt just from the pain alone.

“Always.”

This was his dream, but he couldn’t control it. Instead he existed in some cruel universe that constantly sought to remind him that his life had never and would never be his own again.

Hands and heat and the sickening sensation of knowing that he was completely at the mercy of Ansem in full view of Hope. The other youth was glaring at him, repulsed, much like he had the last time they had spoken to each other. Riku couldn't save either of them then and he certainly couldn't do it now.

For as much as Ansem was one of the most powerful opponents he had ever faced in his life, the shame he felt was by far much greater. Before Ansem had ever come into his life he had never once felt remorse for his actions, but then the Heartless had given him a self loathing he now possessed in abundance. He was ashamed for how he he acted towards Sora. He felt shame for not becoming a Keybearer like he thought he should have been. Shame for being too stupid to see through Ansem’s lies. Shame for letting Hope die right in front of him. Shame for the sticky substance now in between Ansem’s fingertips.

His body still shuddering, Riku closed his eyes, even if he knew that he would still be able to feel the disgust from his former friend at what had just occurred. Hope had seen it all, witnessing his undoing in each drawn out detail. There was no forgiveness, no escape from what he had become and would forever be. He sank further into himself, if it was even possible, trying to block out sights and sounds of what had inevitably become his downfall.

Riku wanted to disappear, to cease his dreaming and for the first time in two years know what it would be like to not know what true dread truly meant.

Forgetting was easier, the only reasonable method left for him to cope with what had become life-altering. He sank and continued to sink back into the pitch darkness in the hopes that somewhere within its depths he could finally find some peace. Ansem and Hope both disintegrated in front of him, looking neither surprised nor angry about his retreat. He was fleeing like a coward, without a word, without so much as an apology to the one he had for a time considered a friend.

He disappeared, the ropes slipping off of him as he descended, but he didn’t think too much about it. It wasn’t calm that overtook him, just a void, a hole in the existence of where his passion and feelings should have been. The silence guided him through things he should have known, should have had some sort of reaction to, but instead he felt like he had some transcended beyond it all.

In the deepest area of his heart there was sand and a beach, lit by a pale silver moon that never climbed any higher into the sky. Riku’s feet touched the ground and he knew instantly where he was, the absolute lowest that he had ever been and into the cool embrace of the sand. His beach, his island with its solitary paopu fruit tree that had been his refuge ever since he had been a kid. He leaned against it, feeling comfort in how it never wavered away from him. It was always there with smooth bark and the scent hinting of underlying sweetness.

Here there was safety. Here he could hide for as long as he needed to because Ansem would never be able to find him.

Here, he discovered, he wasn’t alone.

~❣️~

What disturbed him most was that there weren’t any stars.

The beach didn't look familiar, but yet somehow he felt like he had been there once before. A different lifetime, a different set of circumstances maybe, and he was sure back then it had looked different, brighter, more colorful maybe. He knew though that it was the same place. It was perpetually night, waves rolling in gently under a pure, full moon that made the sand glitter under its silver light. Serene, peaceful, but lifeless. Here there was nothing other than himself, the water, the moon. The entire area was clear, perfectly smooth without so much as a footprint. He was alone. He was fairly certain that he had always been alone.

Sometimes he tried to remember life outside the beach. Tried to summon the vision of other people beside him, the sounds of their voices, the feeling of companionship. What came to him seemed to be swept away almost as soon as they were summoned. As if the waves themselves caught his memories and dragged them back out to the vast, endless sea before he could ever claim it.

One time, long ago the waves were kinder to him. At one time he learned that not everything was exactly as it appeared. Once, a very long time beforehand, he used to be able to look up to the sky and see the stars and count them, each perfect, each a testament of endless possibilities and boundless adventures.

Now there was a blank sky, and the expectation that someday he would finally be able to get the answers to the questions that were burned into his mind.

Where had he come from? And why could he never go back?

His name was Terra. Outside of that, he couldn’t remember much more.

He saw the youth materialize from a ways off, simultaneously floating, or maybe sinking from a height taller than the trees and onto the small island connected only by a single wooden bridge. Silver hair caught the moonlight as the youth approached and seemed to hold, robbing the moon of what little power it had been able to call its own. The stranger glowed, if that was by any right accurate, and it appeared like he belonged in this realm, more than anyone else. He recognized this, accepted that he was in fact the foreigner with no right to intrude on a sacred, secret place, but knew that he also had no other choice.

Terra felt no dread, no fear with the arrival of someone else for the first time. In a way he had been anticipating this. In a way he knew that sooner or later he would have to be ready to speak. There were many things that the two of them needed to discuss and he feared that there wouldn’t be near enough time to do so. He went to the island, watching as the newcomer collapsed more or less at the base of the tree trunk, green eyes distant and then turning to focus entirely on him. 

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“We need to talk.” He tried to sound as confident as he could, but he could almost feel his gaze begin to waver. “There are things that are happening beyond my control. Things that I think only you can fix now.”

“You want me to fix things?” The words of the youth took an irritated, biting tone.

“I… don’t think I’m able to anymore. Something’s wrong. Things aren’t the way they were supposed to be.”

The silver haired youth frowned deeply, sitting further back and hanging his head almost down into his chest.

“I don’t want you here.” He stated firmly, but not entirely dismissive. If anything his words seemed fatigued, worn like a stone that had constantly been battered to become a smaller, less meaningful version of itself. “This is my heart, and I’m tired of other people using it as their own.”

Storm blue eyes scrutinized the other youth, narrowing just slightly with a quiet sigh.

“You need to understand, there are forces here that run deeper than you know. Lifetimes before either of us were born there were destinies that were already being aligned. There have been paths that are set so firmly I don’t know if anyone can escape them anymore.” He replied. “What has happened and what is going to happen from this point onward are all up to you now. You can’t make the same mistakes like I have.”

“You don’t know what mistakes I’ve already made.”

“I know that you now have a chance to try and make things right.”

“I don’t even know who you are!” Riku snapped, his features twisted in fury and frustration. “I don’t know how you got here and I don’t know why you just don’t go away!”

“My name… is Terra.” He responded slowly, carefully gauging just how irritated his companion was becoming. “And I’ve been trying to find out how I got here as well. I don’t remember a lot of things, it's like my mind is missing something. Like I'm a fragment of what I once was.”

“Lucky for you.” The other youth’s lips curled upwards into a snarl. “I'd give anything to forget all that has happened to me.”

The conversation was deteriorating quickly, that much Terra knew for sure. He didn’t want to beg, to plea for a chance to be heard, but felt like it was the only way he could ensure that Riku would understand him.

“Listen to me, something is very wrong here. This isn’t the Xehanort I remember. This isn’t anything like before I woke up here. You have to believe me when I say that I only want to help.”

“I don’t need you.” When Riku stood up, a fissure in the ground was created in his wake, cracking and spreading through the sand and out further along onto the beach. Terra flinched, physically able to feel the wound of such a deep gash to a heart. “I’ve already had enough of people telling me about my destiny. I tried to pursue it and become a Keyblade Master and you know what it got me?”

“Please… listen…” Terra swallowed as hard as he could to keep the lump in his throat down. “You have a chance…”

“Someone _died_ because of me.” Green eyes burned so bright that they pierced through the darkness as if it were nothing.

“You can fix this…” He whispered so harshly it may as well never been said at all.

“I’m done with destiny. For all I care, if I never hold another Keyblade again my life will probably be better off for it.” Riku turned his back, beginning to fade to where he had come from. “All I want… All I ever wanted was to go home. Funny thing is… I don’t even think that’s possible for me anymore. There’s no more chances for someone like me.”

Then he was gone, leaving Terra once again alone on a beach in a heart that wasn’t his own. The older youth reached out to touch the tear in the landscape beside him, fingers trailing over the cold, icy remnants of what had once been whole. He did what he could, as he always did to hold this place together. Whatever bits of his own heart he could spare, he used without question to repair the damage, creating back sand and water and sky and air. There wasn’t much left of himself, and he didn’t know how much longer he would be able to keep this heart in tact, but he knew he had to try.

No matter the cost, this heart didn’t deserve to suffer so cruelly. Terra laid back in the sand, exhausted and heaving, knowing that a little more of his clarity had been lost in order to save someone who didn’t even want him there.

Why was he there? Why couldn’t he leave?

He pondered these questions as he once again stared up into the empty, starless sky.

~❣️~

“Riku.”

He woke with Sora’s hand inside his and the smell of sand with a sweetness hidden underneath.

His mind swelled with the thought that his friend was there with him, right beside him, ready as always to be there for him. Sora was within arms reach, closer than he ever dared dream would be possible again.

It was an ordeal every time he opened his eyes, having to remember that what he saw and what he remembered weren't always the same thing. This wasn't the Graveyard Castle, even if the walls looked vaguely familiar, the whitewashed color of the medical bay all too reminiscent of another more sinister place. He wasn't being experimented on against his will. Not anymore. The people here, while wary of him as they should have been, at least had an interest in helping him recover.

Ansem had no control over a place like this. Ansem no longer had control over him.

A hand inside his, and Riku was suddenly all too keenly aware of how very little physical contact he had been given since his departure from Destiny Islands. At least any contact that he had actually wanted. Sora’s hands weren’t like his, they were devoid of callouses and brittle reminders of what Riku had endured on a day-to-day basis. Training had molded his body in more aspects than he had originally anticipated. Something that Sora with soft, smaller hands had obviously not undergone.

And now his friend was waiting, beckoning to him because in one way or another all that someone like Sora ever cared about was just bringing him back.

How could Riku possibly apologize though? How could he in any way justify his actions? He tried not to flinch at the thought, desperate for an answer because inevitably Sora was going to have to hear some sort of reasoning from him. They hadn’t talked, not really, not yet, because Riku hadn’t been in any sort of state of mind to have the one conversation in the worlds he dreaded most. He’d been allowed to rest, to collect himself, and until then no one had dared disrupt him.

As much as Riku was now free he was still caught. Consequences, Ansem had told him, were inescapable. He could possibly lose everything. After all, who would still want to remain with someone who was a liar and traitor?

“Sora…” He gulped, hazily opening his eyes before he called out in a scratchy sort of whisper.

If any day was to be that day, it might as well have been then.

Probably subconsciously, his friend’s hand only tightened more firmly, interlacing fingers in a way that even if Riku wanted to he couldn't get away from. For all his fear, he tried to take it as reassurance. The Sora he knew back then wouldn’t hold his past against him forever. Back then, no matter what, the two of them would always be friends.

There was no room for hope left in him, but for a second he dared to let it something like it flicker inside. He didn't deserve this. He of all people knew that.

“Riku..? Riku, you’re awake!” The brunette was sitting in a chair at his bedside, looking very much surprised that his friend had heard him calling out. “H-How are you feeling? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” The older youth sat up somewhat stiffly, not in the least bit used to being bedridden for any extended amount of time. “At least, as fine as I'm going to be I guess.”

Sora nodded in understanding, strangely calm even for his standards.

“I’m so glad that you’re awake!” He was looking at him with the same expression like he had on the day when they had been separated by the Door to Darkness. Hopeful, calm, and above all else genuinely happy to be in the other’s presence. “I was so lost. When you're not here, with me, it's just… it's wrong. Nothing felt right you know? I couldn't… I couldn't go on without you.”

“I…” Riku hesitated, frowning as he corrected himself before speaking again. “Thank you Sora. Thank you for coming to find me. I don't think I would have made it without you either.”

“That’s what friends do right?” His best friend was virtually beaming with satisfaction. “I mean, I knew you were out there somewhere and I wasn’t going to give up on you.”

“Yeah… that’s what friends do.” The silver haired youth responded back sullenly.

“Don’t worry it’ll be easy to get back into the swing of things.” Sora nodded enthusiastically, oblivious, closing the distance between the two of them by sitting forward in his chair. “I’ll be here too, for as much as you need. It can be like it was back on the islands you know? Back before… everything.”

It was quiet for a tense moment, silent save for the hums of a few machines that had been left on in the background behind them.

“Sora, I…” Riku spoke only when he could find his voice again, staring at the bedsheets in his lap. “With everything that’s happened, I don’t think things can go back to how they were.”

The brunette youth seemed slightly taken aback, puzzled at how blatantly Riku had stated what he himself had been fighting to realize as a pure, unalterable fact. Sora frowned deeply, troubled, and almost looked bitter at the thoughts running through his head. It was obvious that this wasn't the response he had been wanting.

“I know this isn't Destiny Islands, but it's still a pretty nice world.” He began, biting at each of his words. “Kairi has done a lot to make this place as open and friendly to anyone who wants to be here. I know that you were here before, back with Maleficent and them, but it's different now. We can still do a lot of the same things like we did back on the islands. This place doesn’t have to be perfect, but as long as we’re together what does it matter?”

“Sora it's not about that.” Riku sighed heavily while feeling like his chest was being crushed underneath a heavy stone. “It's not just about being here.”

“Then what is it about?” His friend asked back quizzically, completely unable to understand.

“It's about-” He stopped, reevaluated what it was he was about to say and then slowly continued. Once the words started however, he didn't know if he had any control to stop them. “Everything that has happened… ever since we left the islands, was my fault. It's my fault Destiny Islands was consumed by Darkness. I opened the door that night, remember? I left you to join Maleficent. I… allowed… Ansem… to take ahold of me. It's my fault I was his prisoner and it's my fault that you spent such a long time just trying to find me. All of this, everything, is because I made the mistake of thinking I could be something I wasn’t.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Just that… I don't know how long I can be here.”

The stunned look on Sora’s face was more painful than he expected it to be. The raw emotion almost looked as if he had betrayed his friend for a second time all over again. It was the truth though, something that his future irreversibly revolved around and couldn't have been ignored.

“I don't like what you're saying.” The younger one pleaded earnestly, shaking his head in defiance. “You're acting like you being saved means nothing.”

“What Ansem did to me, the Darkness he put inside me, isn’t something that can just be taken away.” Riku tried to explain as best he could, shifting uncomfortably in his bed. “I don’t know if there even is a way to fix it and I don’t know if I can control it. For now I’m doing what I can, but there may come a day where it will finally overpower me. What happens on that day Sora? What happens if Ansem comes here to finish what he started and I end up destroying the last few things I have left in my life that I care about? It’s not worth it for me to be here. The risk of what could happen at any time… Someday something could go terribly wrong.”

“You don’t know that!!!” Sora was yanking on his arm, nearly clamoring up on the bed just to get his point across.

“I do know that!” Riku stared his best friend down, almost angry, nearly enough for him to pull away and not want to speak about it anymore. His friend may have been stubborn to a fault, but no amount of willpower was going to change it. It was true that for most instances in his life Sora had overcome his obstacles through sheer determination. For the Keybearer, the idea of giving up was as true as no longer wanting to breathe air. Sure, it could happen, but no one in their right mind would ever really consider it.

“You’re saying all of this like you mean nothing to me! Like my spending years looking for you doesn’t even matter!” The brunette shook his head, his face flustered and beginning to turn red. “Like you're worthless or no one cares about you.”

“If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have had to look in the first place!” He snapped back, harder than he meant to and pain from his words resonated across Sora’s face. “The mistakes I’ve made have cost you and everyone else I’ve known a lot, and my being saved isn’t going to make all those mistakes go away! Sooner or later I’m going to have to face all the people I’ve hurt and I don’t know how I’m going to do that.”

There was a heavy silence between them that neither of them seemed eager to break, oppressive, and Sora’s hand slowly slipped away from him.

“They- They told me to let them know when you had woken up.” He stammered, staring at the sheets on the bed like somehow they could solve the riddle of emotions running through him. “They said they had some questions to ask you.”

“Sora…” Riku leaned back heavily into the pillows behind him and gritting his jaw as tight as he could. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to tell them all what happened to me.”

“You just explain it to them. Ansem tricked you. You didn't know that any of this would happen.”

“It's not as easy as that.”

Sora was visibly getting frustrated, the swelling of his feelings were distinguishable from the hardness in his eyes and the way he clenched his hands into fists. Things for him had always been as simple as moving forward. There was no going back. Moving forward was always the only option.

“The Riku I knew two years ago wasn’t afraid of anything.” The Keybearer’s voice broke through the air softly, and somehow that made his argument cut all the deeper. “He wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he believed in, even if he was the only one.”

“I’m not that person anymore.” Riku replied back as cold and brittle as steel. “Sora you don’t understand what all this has done to me.”

“Then tell me!” Sora pleaded. “I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. You know that. You have to know that after all the time we’ve known each other.”

There was never a more true statement in all the worlds, Riku knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. For him and him alone, Sore would go to the ends of the earth for. There was nothing his best friend wouldn’t sacrifice for his well being, and therein lied the problem. So long as Sora was willing to put himself in detrimental harm, Riku couldn’t allow him to continue. He needed to put some sort of separation between them. Had to if he didn’t want another incident like Hope to occur.

“I can’t… I can’t tell you about it right now.” He winced and spoke some of the hardest words he'd ever had to say. “ And I’d prefer it if you weren't there at whatever meeting they want to have for me.”

“...what?”

“Please Sora.” Riku spoke barely above a whisper. “Please do this for me.”

“You can't send me away like that!” His best friend was in a rage, standing up abruptly in absolute fury. “The Riku I knew before would never do this!!”

“I keep telling you. I'm not the same person you knew before.”

“Then who are you now?!” Blue eyes were boring into his, not angry or sad or confused, but full of a strange passion that Riku couldn’t explain.

Riku pulled away, fingers grazing at the side of his own neck.

“A shell. Something that has nothing left inside.”

~❣️~

If she waited for him outside the audience chamber she knew for a fact that he would come.

Kairi tried not to let her nerves get to her, tried to remind herself that this was the friend she had always known. As soon as she saw his figure approaching from at the end of the hallway though, her immediate thought was the wonder if he had always been that intimidating. It was easy to recognize him, broad shoulders and silver hair that should have been everything she remembered from her childhood. He didn’t walk in a threatening manner, but there definitely was a presence that hadn’t been there before. This was different in that she could almost feel the small snakes of discomfort slithering up her spine, or the tense trembling of her fingertips.

It was Riku and yet somehow it wasn’t. She chose to ignore it, laid aside all the small little warning bells within her because a Queen didn’t cower in the face of uncertainty. Everyone feared what the silver haired boy could do, and she had chosen to stand for him. No matter what, she wouldn’t let her doubt show now, not when he was finally home.

“Riku.” Kairi unabashedly swept forward to embrace her childhood friend as soon as he was close enough for her to do so. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”

“It’s… It’s good to see you Kairi.” He didn’t sound very sure of himself, for something that should have held a lot more importance. She felt his hesitation in the way he put his arms around her, as if she’d crumble and fall to pieces at the slightest pressure.

“You’ve gotten so tall.” Kairi grinned up at him, standing on her tiptoes to demonstrate her point, reaching up as if to measure the distance between the tops of their heads. “Either that or I’ve been getting a whole lot shorter.”

He almost smiled back at her, almost with the same sort of warmth from back when he was a child.

“A bit of both maybe.” Riku somewhat uneasily teased her back. “Though from what I’ve been hearing you’ve had a lot to grow up to.”

“Yes well…” The Queen’s smile faded and her entire countenance took on a more somber tone. She shifted her whole body as if she were about to shy away from her next statement, folding her arms over along her stomach. “Haven’t had a whole lot of choice in the matter.”

Riku breathed in deeply, sighing heavily in a way that made her think that he probably understood her sentiment far better than she initially wanted to believe.

“Yeah. It hasn’t been an easy two years.”

“Riku…” Kairi spoke his name as if there was trepidation behind it, something that was reflected somewhere in the way she bit at her bottom lip, or the worry hovering in her eyes. “I really am glad you’re back and I want you to know that we did everything we could to find you.”

There was tension. Something lingering just beyond the scope of her senses and both she and Riku were acutely aware of it. It was something that neither of them wished to speak aloud about first, but it was there and it was waiting, patiently like a heavy fog.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, calmly, in a way to keep her emotions from rising any further.

She shook her head, not at him, but the thoughts surrounding her.

“Riku…” She began, gazing up at him. She didn’t tremble, but grounded herself, taking control over what doubted her mind. “You know that Sora wants you here, but I want you to understand that _I_ want you here too. Being a ruler isn’t easy, not in the slightest, and I’ve never wanted to make decisions that could hurt the people I care about. You and Sora are important to me and you’re important to each other. I don’t want anything to get in the way of that.”

“This is why you’ve summoned me here?” He questioned back, and she couldn’t help but notice his clipped tone along with a slight inflection in his voice.

“You being here now has been an ordeal that has tested quite a few people’s understanding of what’s been going on, not just in this world, but also in the worlds abroad. We know that… Ansem…” She spoke his name quietly as if he might overhear. “...that Ansem is definitely still out there and that him and his accomplices would like nothing more than to have Hollow Bastion and everything in it fall to Darkness.”

“You think I’m an accomplice?” Riku almost sounded insulted, as if to convince Kairi and also himself that the accusation was nothing more than complete slander.

“That’s not what I’m saying at all!” The Queen exclaimed more loudly than her statement beforehand. “I don’t believe for a second that you ever wanted to give yourself over to Ansem, or have him do all the things he did while you were gone. The fact of the matter is though that you are the first and only person we know of that’s had any sort of interaction with Ansem since Sora sealed away the Door to Darkness. You’re the only person who can give us answers as to what Ansem is planning and hopefully give us a chance to try and stop him before something truly bad happens.”

“You think I know anything?” He looked on the verge of retreat, backing a step away before catching himself to stop. “Ansem didn’t tell me a damn thing about what his great plans were, or how he was going to go about it. If you think an interrogation is going to change any of that… I’m sorry but I can't help you.”

“Riku-”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Maybe there’s something you saw that you don’t realize was important. Maybe there’s a little phrase or a name he said that didn’t make sense. We need anything we can get because honestly,” Her voice sunk low, as if the louder she admitted the truth the more real it became. “we are completely blind right now.”

The silver haired youth swallowed, grinding his teeth together in a mixture of exasperation and anguish. It was obvious that he didn’t want to do this. By no rights should he have been put up on a pedestal and treated like a war criminal just because of one fated event of his life. In a perfect world Kairi would have been able to protect him from her own people. Would have been able to let him live out the rest of his life in peace.

“Let’s get this over with then.” Riku conceded, head bowed and eyes closed. A willing sacrifice all in the name of the greater good.

“I’m so sorry.” She apologized, but even to her the words felt flat and lifeless.

She was Queen, and yet she felt like she spent a majority of her life doing nothing but justifying her actions. Kairi led him inside, half wondering if she was making the greatest mistake of her life.

~❣️~

“How long had Ansem been using the castle in the Keyblade Graveyard?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was he doing with the information he got from hacking our computers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who else is Ansem using to help him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did he go to on the day that you were rescued?”

A pause. A blank moment where all he wanted to do was pretend that if he didn't answer then all of it would go away.

“...I don't know.”

There came an exasperated sigh from the heavily cloaked man whose head was almost entirely covered with bandages.

“Clearly the boy has no intention of cooperating with us.”

“It’s not his fault if Ansem didn’t tell him anything.” It was surprising that the man with a toothpick between his teeth and goggles on his head was the first person to defend Riku. “Obviously the guy kept his plans pretty close to the chest if you ask me. I mean if he worked so hard to keep us in the dark about what he was doing, it makes sense that he would do the same thing for him too.”

“Doesn't excuse his complete lack of information.” The cloaked man huffed angrily, glowering openly at anyone who made eye contact.

“Cid’s right.” The young woman with long brunette hair on the other end of the table pursed her lips as she spoke, looking more than a little bit downtrodden. “Ansem clearly had no intention of possibly giving up any personal information, even to someone he had kidnapped.”

“I think we should should start again.” Her opponent’s singular eye was glaring and his jaw set so tight it was visible even through the cloth. “Maybe that will help jog his memory.”

“Diz.” Kairi reproached him, scowling.

“I refuse to believe that there is nothing for him to offer. There must be a reason for Ansem to go through all this trouble. Two victims, countless others killed in multiple worlds, and more refugees than this world can handle alone. It's not unreasonable to ask for an explanation. And since the man himself isn't here to do it, I'll take the next best thing.”

All eyes were on Riku. He could feel their stares, their judgement like a weight that threatened to crush him into nothing more than dust. If it had truly been an option he would have run, hidden himself away from their attention, but he told himself he could tolerate it. It was important to them, he understood that, because it wasn't just their livelihoods that were being threatened. It was his and everyone else’s in the worlds, and of course they wanted to save themselves.

The problem was, there was nothing he could do to help.

For the last few hours it had been the same questions with the same answers, all while Riku skirted around his interpersonal relationship with his tormentor. Everyone present had something to ask him, trying to weed through his mind for a thing that remained concealed to all of them. He didn't want to be a hinderance, but with each question came a reliving of experiences that were all too much for him to handle alone.

There was no one to comfort him. No one to persuade him that this flood of memories and emotions was all for a chance at redemption. Sora wouldn't be there, not after he had so distinctly told him not to be. It had cost something, a minor betrayal of what little bit of their friendship was still left in tact. It was necessary though. The brunette wouldn't be able to see that what Riku did, he did because he didn't want to be forever known for all the many crimes he had committed.

So he let the images of the past wash over him. Tried to tell himself that everything he wanted to distance himself from couldn't harm him anymore. The past was the past, and sleeping demons or not, the past could no longer dictate his fate.

“I've told you everything I can remember.” Riku confessed. “I don’t know what else I can say to make you believe that.”

“It's convenient is all I'm saying.” Diz countered. “That out of the two people who could have been of aid to us only one of them survived.”

“Why did Ansem choose Hope?” Another man with scar along his face asked.

Riku didn't register that his whole body tightened, put on edge at the very mention of his once friend’s name.

“I… don't… know.”

“Riku…” Kairi leaned forward anxiously in her seat at the head of the table. “If you could… tell us about what happened to him.”

He swallowed hard, staring at the wood grain of the table and tried to count off how many seconds it took for him to feel like he had the ability to speak again.

“We tried to escape together.” The silver haired youth began to explain as he resisted the memories of the events he was ashamed of most. “Things didn’t- Things didn’t go according to plan. I thought we could both make it out, instead it was only me. So he went back. He went back to try and stall Ansem so I could get help, but it didn’t make a difference in the end. Ansem still managed to capture us both again.”

There was a hush over the room as if time itself had slowed just for them alone.

“What happened after that?” The brunette with the scar prompted him, carefully but with some forcefulness. It was strange but it sounded like there was investment in his tone. Something that Riku wouldn't have guessed from complete strangers.

“He tortured us. Seperately. And after that Hope was ready to give in to the Darkness, but Ansem was willing to let him have one last chance to make it. So he told me… He told me to fight for Hope’s freedom and if I won Hope could leave to wherever he wanted. That he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.”

“Riku…” Kairi looked about ready to stand up, and he wished that she would have ended it all right then. He wished for mercy, but mercy never came.

“I… I…” Every breath he took feel like a chill seeping into his very soul, panic spreading like a disease in his veins. “I did everything I could… I tried to win! I wanted to win so much! He was my friend and I failed him! I… I lost. I lost and because of it… I got to watch him die.”

_It wasn’t your fault._

He wanted to scream, to tear and claw and bleed out the part of him that had caused such terrible injustice. Everything in his life was damned. Damned for what he did, or didn't do.

“So what you’re saying is that Ansem took all that time and effort into kidnapping someone else,” Diz tapped his finger on the tabletop as he spoke to emphasize his point. “only to kill him off at the first sign of something going astray.”

“Hope… Hope was dying anyway.” Riku flinched, trying his best to ignore the small voice in his head.

“So he tested you to see if you would actually try to save him yourself? Was it even possible for you have rescued him from the Darkness?” The scowling advisor only continued to pester him.

“...No…” He breathed the word so softly he didn’t think that anyone else had heard it.

“So his entire existence at the castle was a setup?”

“Diz!” A voice that could have been Kairi’s cried out, but it didn’t matter anymore.

He was already leaving, the sound of blood rushing through his ears so loud that all else drowned out in the background. No one tried to stop him. No one could have stopped him, he realized if he was honest with himself, not without the fear of the fallout that would have been brought in his wake. Out into the castle he fled with no real direction. The halls blurred into one. The lights, the silhouettes of portraits of people he didn’t know all looked the same. None of it mattered though, he needed to get away. 

The memories chased him with every single step, and it would have taken more strength than he had in his entire being to outlast them.

~❣️~

It took several hours for Cloud to find him, huddled and alone in one of the stairwells in the inner spires of the castle. Cold probably, he deduced from the way the youth’s arms trembled and how shallow his breaths seem to rise. It was easy enough to deduce why he had chosen this place to seek shelter. It was quiet, and more importantly almost entirely secluded from the rest of the main castle structure.

“They were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to find you.” The blonde stated, sitting down stiffly but aware of how close he was beside the youth, not able to see him quite clearly through the dim lamplight. “At least not in the castle anyway.”

“I know I’m not supposed to leave this place.” Riku didn’t unfurl himself, but looked at him with piercing green eyes. “I know I traded out being a prisoner in one castle for another.”

“For the time being.”

The youth was perceptive, Cloud noted, but it was a trait that seemed to have become necessary for someone who had been a former captive of Ansem. A daily fight for survival had a tendency to do that to a person. The blonde could sympathize to some degree. Very few had had their lives eradicated so profoundly as the two in the stairwell had.

“How long…” Riku blinked, pausing to gauge the soldier’s reaction. “How long were you in the Darkness?”

Too perceptive. Cloud turned with not an expression of anger or indignation, but genuine intrigue at his revelation.

“Not long.” He admitted. “But long enough to know that it wasn’t anything I ever should have tried to deal with. I was foolish enough to think I could handle it alone.”

“I see.” Riku nodded solemnly, keeping his eyes downward. “How did you make it out?”

“I found a light. Someone who helped lead me back to where I needed to be.” The warrior pursed his lips for a moment, internally trying to decide on whether on not this was too much information to be giving out to someone who could have possibly been an agent of Darkness. He didn’t really want to consider the youth a threat, not if it was unwarranted anyway. Sympathy wasn’t something he usually felt for someone else, but it was hard to not have a little pity for someone after having heard even a small portion of the events that had happened during his kidnapping.

“Someone was a light for you?”

“It’s the best way I can describe it. If it hadn’t been for them, I probably would have been lost forever.” Cloud breathed deeply, his thoughts drifting back to a time when he had distinctly thought that he hadn’t needed saving. He had been careless, reckless, and only because someone had given of themselves had he ever been shown otherwise. All it had taken was one gesture of kindness, and it had been as if the skies had parted on his behalf. Life existed outside of the chaos. In the stillness he had found new purpose.

“What if… what if you’re already lost to the Darkness?” Riku asked tentatively, slowly bringing one of his hands up in front of his face. Small tendrils of dark power hovered above his palm, writhing, almost dancing if one looked at it from the right perspective. “What if this is how I will always be?”

“Do you want to be like this?”

“No… I didn’t think, before, when I first met Ansem that this was what he meant. I thought that I would just be powerful. Not that the only thing I would be good at would be destroying everything I’d ever know.”

“You’re not destroying things now.” Cloud pointed out, perhaps a little sharply from the way the power that Riku had been toying with instantly vanished. He watched the youth clenched his fist tightly, angrily, as if he could will the force within him away. “It may not be something that can be removed anytime soon, but at least you can learn to control it better.”

“I don’t think that me practicing to learn how to use the Darkness in me is going to be something that most people want to see around here.” Riku replied back bitterly.

“You’re right that practicing out in the open may not be the wisest idea in front of others.” Cloud said, looking at him with a sidelong glance. “I might however have a place that could be of help to you.”

“A… place?” Riku asked quizzically.

“There's a room in the castle caverns I've been secretly using for years to learn how to control my Dark powers. I'm the only one who ever goes there so there's no one to judge. If you want, I'll give you a spare key.”

It was obvious that Riku hadn't expected this strange sort of kindness. Not from someone in the Queen’s personal guard. It might well be the only place in the entire castle where Riku could actually, fully, be himself. A small kindness, but sometimes it was the small things that could make the greatest difference.

“Thank you… I would like that.”

~❣️~

Sora awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of screams and instinctively knew that that even for someone who didn’t consider himself to be a hero, Riku needed his help.

Their rooms were next to each other, separated by only a few paces from door to door but in a way the distance felt much further. They were worlds apart from each other mentally and emotionally, yet Sora was determined to correct it. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t argued before in the past. In their childhood it would have been an impossibility for them not to have had some sort of argument, what with how their temperaments occasionally got out of line with each other. They’d always bounce back though, after a short time apart when they both came to realize that whatever quarrel they had wasn’t worth the risk of losing their friendship.

It worked then and it would work again. The Keybearer would make sure of it.

“Riku!”

Behind a locked door that did next to nothing to slow Sora down he found Riku cowering against his bed frame, hands grabbing at fistfuls of his own hair. The youth’s whimpers came to a stunned halt at his arrival, but the fear was still there. It was a sight that the brunette hadn’t wanted to see again, but the tears were glistening on his face, bright and gleaming and horrible. Riku retracted from the brunette, trying to stifle another whimper that bubbled from his throat and into his arms.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” He trembled, breathing the same few words over endlessly. “I’m sor-”

“Riku.” Sora climbed onto the bed and gripped him by the shoulders firmly, noticing how his friend flinched and winced as if he was expecting to feel pain. “You’re ok. You’re safe. I’m here. I’m here with you.”

It took a moment for the older youth to recognize his voice, but when he did his body almost completely collapsed into his best friend. Tassels of silver hair spilled over Sora’s arms and chest as Riku buried his face and tears into him, clinging as if it was to be his last night alive. His sobs were light, but carried a weight with them that broke the Keybearer’s heart with each utterance. The pain was like nothing else, indescribable and incomprehensible and Sora wanted nothing else more than to take it all away.

Riku suffered mostly in silence, except for rare moments like these, when he was caught off guard and was emotionally rendered bare. Pride stopped him from seeking help, but it wasn’t strong enough to keep someone like Sora away. He had always been able to tell when Riku was hurting, even when others couldn't. The extent of the damage however still remained a mystery.

“I won’t let him have you… Not again…” The brunette whispered, not knowing exactly why he was saying what he did, but went with whatever felt right at the moment. He stroked silver strands through his fingers and remembered having done the same thing so many years beforehand. Everything about Riku was beautiful, even the parts of him that were tough and hardened. Sora could have easily spent hours, days if it were possible, just basking in the feeling of Riku’s presence. He had done so before, and he longed for a chance to do it again.

In their secret place they had learned what it meant to enjoy each other's company. Sora would always remember the times that they had sat there in silence, having retreated away from the rest of the worlds and together simply drew in the dirt with their hands. Everything had been calm then. In that place they had been untouchable, elevated from the cares and worries of life. Nothing could or would ever harm either of them in that place. Nothing could have ever split them apart.

Destiny Islands had been destroyed though and with it their secret place as well. Sora often tried not to think about what had befallen his home world, or imagine how terrible a tragedy had befallen those he had known. Those things in the past couldn't be changed and it wasn't as if dwelling on them would make any of it return. Hollow Bastion had become his new home, and as he had promised, he was determined to make the most of it. Not just for his sake, but for the sake of the ones who needed him most.

Secret places could still be found, if one only knew where to look for them.

“Come with me.” Sora beckoned, pulling Riku gently and guiding his friend by the hands off the bed and out towards the hall.

“Sora… I can't.” Riku shook his head but didn't put up much of a fight, sluggishly moving to keep up. His hair obscured his face, which only cast longer shadows by the candles that lit their way. “I can't face anyone like this.”

“No one will see us.” The brunette assured him and continued to lead them fearlessly out further step by step. “Trust me please. I think you will like this.”

The castle was guarded at all times, and the staff worked all hours to keep up with the demands of the kingdom. Sora knew this only because he himself had also been awake many of those hours, unable to sleep and had done this same walk dozens of times over. He knew who should have been where. From the kitchen staff who had already begun preparing meals for the next day, to the rotation of the guards who kept vigilance over their safety. Every corner he made them cut, every door they slipped through unnoticed got them ever closer to their destination, and neither so much as breathed a word until they come to a set of large ornately decorated wooden double doors.

“This is it.” Sora pushed on the handle until the hinges moved silently, revealing what was behind it.

The library may have been the last place anyone would have thought of as comfortable for a set of island boys. Stale books and leather bindings didn't remotely resemble sand or palm trees or the roar of the ocean waves, but it wasn't because of those reasons that Sora had been drawn here. It had been the calm, the peace, the stillness that reminded him of one spot, and one spot alone.

“I've never been here before.” Riku confessed, wandering further into the abandoned library that was lit only by what small amount filtered through stained glass windows. The Keybearer followed him at a close distance, watching as his friend’s eyes traveled all along the shelves, the tables, the desks and plush chairs.

“I found it by accident one night, when I thought I was going to get caught sneaking around the castle.” Sora lit a single candle he acquired from a nearby desk using magic that he had learned on his travels. “No one comes in here this late at night, and honestly I don't think they would care about us being here if they did.”

“It's nice…” Riku mused, turning full circle to face him in the light. “I… I like this.”

“Yeah.” Sora nodded with a small, pensive smile. “I'm really glad I found it. I don't know but there's something about this musty place. It reminds me of the secret place back home where we used to scribble on the walls. Remember?”

Elevated from the world, the past couldn't touch them. The future was a lifetime away, and in that moment all that truly mattered was that they were there together. It was as it had always been, and would continue from then onward. Sora believed this. He believed with all his heart that no mistake could ever not be forgiven.

For Riku he could do anything. For Riku he could overcome anything.

“Yeah. I remember.” Riku’s words resonated all the way down into Sora’s soul.

 

In the morning both of them were found by a library attendant, sleeping side by side on one of the couches, heads lying against one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it's only been a couple of months since the last update. Right? Right?!
> 
> In all seriousness though, this year has been a hellova trip for me. I won't get into the exact specifics of it all, but needless to say this comes to you from a point in my life that very much empathizes with Riku in that going through personal issues is not something that is very pleasant in the slightest. But I'm still here. Still hold this story very near and dear to me, and I want to do right by it. Thank you dear readers for those who left comments and kudos during the impromptu hiatus. If there's anything I learned is that sometimes continuing to move forward is sometimes the greatest challenge. From here on there is only going forward. Forward to the path to dawn.


	11. The Source

Normality wasn’t easy, but in the months that followed Riku settled into a routine that helped to set a semblance of it. The repetition eased his mind from straying, from thinking about how delicate and very easily his life could be destroyed all over again. He did his best not to dwell on Ansem, of how if the Heartless really truly desired it, he could snatch Riku away within a blink of an eye and no one would be able to stop him.

The youth learned gradually that time could in fact begin to make the wounds and the memories heal. It wasn't perfect by any means, but with each day that ticked by, a little more of Ansem was buried in the past. He could never ignore that part of his life, and the fear of the return of the Master of Darkness was always in the back his mind. However that fear now had less power over him though, and slowly he could accept that maybe there was a life he could have outside of what he had done.

“Maybe he forgot about you.” Sora chimed in one afternoon when they had been delicately discussing the matter of the Master of Darkness. “Maybe he knows that he can't get to you here and he gave up.”

“Ansem never forgets anything.” Riku grimaced. “He will wait forever if need be to get what he wants. Whatever it takes, he will try it. I don't want to be there when it happens.”

“You say this like he always wins.” Sora frowned heavily, tilting his head to the side with curiosity.

“You don't know him the way I do.”

Day by day, week by week, and still there was nothing. So Riku distracted himself as best he could, filling his time as much as possible with whatever he could find to do. It didn't take long before one day would meld into the next, and in so doing, he found a small bit of happiness.

Mornings were always early, as early as he could manage it. He usually rose before the crack of dawn to wander about where he could, commonly into the kitchens in search of a small meal that the staff was kind enough to let him pilfer. They didn’t usually seem to mind him, if not for the occasional side glance and or muted whispers among a couple of the kitchen girls. One of them had even offered him a small pastry one morning that she had personally made, a thing he hadn’t been expecting. He was too dumbfounded to really have the words to thank her, or even to notice her giggles behind him as he briskly walked away.

After whatever breakfast he had, he took to the secreted training hall that Cloud had told him about, always with the reassurance that no one was awake in order to follow him. The blonde captain had been true on his word when he had offered Riku a secluded place to practice all his own. There were caverns located in the roots of the castle, ones that most likely hadn't seen a living soul in decades. At one time there must have been plans to renovate them into a habitable area, or so Riku gathered from the half-finished tunnels and myriad of rooms that seemed to serve no purpose. Whatever had occured in the past to disrupt the plans seemed to have been lost, but at the very least they hadn't entirely sealed it all away.

The key he was given worked only for the largest room, what could have been a throne room or ballroom by the sheer size of it. Now though, it was a place for him to truly use all of his power. There was nothing to hinder him, nothing that couldn't withstand at least the partial brunt of his strength. It was mostly stone surrounding him, stone that seemed to have a resistance to shattering when his dark powers came into contact with it. Before long it became riddled with marks of his own making, and most likely Cloud as well, there was a kind of texture given to the room that didn't exist anywhere else.

In these times Riku felt like he could let himself be free, even just a little bit. If there was such a thing as peace, he found it there in that place.

The power that flowed through him, that coursed through his very blood was much similar to how it had been when Ansem had first possessed him, a force that burned fierce like wildfire and encouraged him to press himself past his own limitations. Everything could be executed without a thought, just a tug, an urge and he cascaded towards his imaginary opponents like a rolling tide. It was true too, that whenever he allowed the Darkness to manifest itself that there was still a faint hint of musk and ash. Whatever power he drew on didn’t matter though. Whether it was his own Darkness or Ansem’s, it was still under his control and he wouldn't allow it to slow him down.

He didn't know what he pretended to fight, and in all honesty he never gave it much thought. There was only the absence of fear that overcame him. He wasn’t the misled boy from the islands, nor the youth who had sold out himself and his friend in the vain hope of becoming something he wasn’t. He was only the ice cold touch of Darkness in his lungs, the feeling of straining muscles and limbs and nerves.

If solitary training didn’t encapsulate his entire day he did make an effort to go to the main gates of the castle by mid-morning, specifically the yard set aside for the soldiers. There was a strict training regimen every day that he had been given express permission to participate in. No real swords, and definitely no display of magical prowess, dark or otherwise. It was only set as a basic platform for sword play, one that for Riku may not have found as challenging as he hoped, but still enjoyable under the right circumstances.

Normally either Cloud, Leon, or both would be there, watching, directing if need be. Neither had much to say about him personally, but it hadn't seemed to have gone unnoticed about his particular set of talents. More often than not Riku had been paired with some of the weakest members, forced into a position to coach and guide even if he didn't consider himself much of a teacher. He did it though, and it didn't take very long for more than a couple soldiers to seek him out expressly. Most of the others seemed to respect him, if not from a distance.

Since he first started attending, Sora made it a point to join as many of the classes as he could, granted of course that he could wake up in time. The brunette was still, and would always be a heavy sleeper, but he seemed to be making an effort, something that Riku learned had been in short supply since his capture. Sora had, unsurprisingly, made it plainly obvious that he only had interest in fighting against Riku, something that the silver haired youth was destined to avoid at all costs. The older youth expressed his concerns to Cloud who was gracious enough to keep them separated almost as much as was physically possible.

Sora didn't understand, and complained rather vehemently about the purposeful relocation in the group. It was for the best though, Riku knew this, because his friend was never one to enter a fight between them and be willing to hold back. The Keybearer would give everything he had and expect Riku to do the same. Anything less would be an insult, a betrayal of their friendship. The problem was that if Riku allowed himself to return the fervor, he doubted if either of them would still be in the same form they had begun in.

For a time he managed to avoid that confrontation, and somehow to keep in the good graces of most everyone in the castle. He did his absolute best to comply with every order that had been given to him, to make himself into an example of what had come to be expected. Whatever it took to change other’s perceptions of him, to make up for the mistakes of his past. If there was such a thing as a home left for someone like him, it might as well have been there.

He tried to rid his body of the Darkness multiple times, and that had proven to be far more painful than he had originally imagined. Aerith, a young woman on the Council who seemed to have extensive knowledge of the Light, had offered to help him purge himself if it was by any means possible. She did everything she could, with a worried Sora hovering just over her shoulder.

“I don’t know how it’s possible to coexist with Darkness, but somehow you seem to be doing it just fine.” She admitted, carefully, delicately removing her hands from his arm. It had been thought that a small infusion of Light might have worked to begin the process of removing the Darkness inside him, even that though had proven to be excruciating. The more Light he tried to intake, the stronger and more corrupt the opposing force inside him became.

“Maybe it just takes some getting used to.” Sora offered hopefully. “He just needs to remember how to be with the Light.”

“It’s possible.” Aerith chewed thoughtfully on a small strand of her own hair.

“Or maybe…” Riku stretched his sore arm, keeping his eyes fixed on Sora while he spoke. “I’ll just have someone else be my Light for me.”

For the rest of his days he was entirely consumed by Sora. Whatever his friend wanted to do, Riku complied wholeheartedly. They explored where they wanted to, roaming the halls like a pair of unruly deviants with nothing better to do. Most of the time they didn’t find anything truly of note, nothing other than old rooms, forgotten pathways and more than a few cobweb riddled areas. The castle was growing, always expanding with more people, but still there were secrets locked behind heavy doors or out of sight to those who didn't look for it.

It was during these encounters that Riku learned a great deal from Sora about what all had been since he had been gone. He listened, silently, as the brunette told him all he'd done to help establish a rebirthed world. The older youth learned of the founding of the council and the Keybearer’s opinions of everyone within it. Of Diz, the outlier, to whom Kairi seemed to inexplicably trust. He learned of the refugees Sora had saved from the Darkness in an effort to find him, and of how many worlds he'd miraculously been able to rescue as well.

Most importantly though, Riku listened to Sora’s hopes and dreams for the future. Not just his own, but for both of them combined. It was the small things Sora hinted at, placed in their conversations like small shells along a shoreline. It was these treasures that meant the most to him, that gave the silver haired youth some sort of drive to keep going from day to day. He wanted to make all of them reality, to give his friend that which Riku hadn't given him before that Sora had proven time and again so deserving of.

In as much as loyalty was what Riku wanted to exemplify, it was always Sora who was unwavering. Every night there were nightmares, and every night the brunette was there to chase them away.

The brunette would slip into his room in the middle of the night like a thief only to slide into bed next to him. It was never intrusive, hardly any physical contact, but it became such a routine that they kept their own separate rooms only for appearance’s sake. Gentle words and a presence that seemed to dispel the darkness with only a few breaths was all it took to put the older youth back at ease again, if only for a little while. He woke every morning to the soft sounds of Sora’s deep slumber and a hint of the smell of sweet and sand.

They never talked about what happened during the night. In some ways it was easier. His friend never asked about his nightmares, and he never asked why they slept next to each other in return. The unspoken things were sometimes the only way they could cope, and both youths had inexplicably understood that. Each day was the same, as was each night, and in that Riku felt content.

Normality wasn’t easy. Normality was a fragile, brittle thing that could shatter in an instant. It was what Riku and his friends had all despised on their island. They had disgraced it, thought it a boring, horrible atrocity. Now it was all he thought worth fighting for.

Normality could hold him in its clutches forever as long as there was still sky blue eyes and an impossible smile to wipe away.

~❣️~

Darkness wasn’t supposed to be beautiful.

Sora watched over Riku like his life depended on it. Many people over time had underestimated the brunette youth, in one way or another, and thought that the Keybearer didn’t have the resilience it took to carry out tasks that could have been hard or even impossible to complete. Cloud and Leon had done it, as had Kairi and others over the years. Even Riku himself, back before he had been taken, had thrown Sora’s own lack of strength back at him when they had met in Hollow Bastion for the first time. It was easy to doubt the Keybearer, or anyone like him for that matter, when there were others stronger, seemingly more dedicated, and infinitely wiser than he would ever be.

And as much as Sora may have wanted to be all those things combined, the humble truth was that it was a lost dream. In that though, was where his true Light could be found. He may never have the same level of raw strength as Cloud, or the steadfast courage of Leon. He wasn’t a born leader like Kairi, able to command and become whatever the people around her needed her to be. The age and supposed wisdom of Diz was well beyond him, and yet regardless of that, it had been him who had done what all of rest of them could not. _He_ had brought Riku home. _He_ had struggled and pursued leads despite how hopeless it had seemed to be, and in the end it had finally paid off.

Tenacity, and curiosity, and a loyalty that bordered on obsession. All of this drove Sora even in the weeks and months that had followed his friend’s return. No matter what, he would be there in whatever capacity Riku needed him to be. If he had it his way, he would never let the silver haired youth out of his sight, which was almost a certainty except for one specific part of the day.

Wherever Riku went in the early mornings was a mystery that Sora was absolutely determined to solve.

So he followed the older youth. Actually forced himself to stay awake all through the night, listening, waiting for when he heard the telltale click of the door shutting before leaping to action. He did everything in his power to remain undetected, as he had when he had been forced to sneak away in the middle of the night back when his friend had been missing. It was doubtful that Riku would even begin to suspect Sora of tailing after him, everyone knew how much he hated waking early, but there still was no reason not to be careful.

Down into the base of the castle he went, trailing after silver hair that glinted far ahead of him. Most of the way he knew where he was going, right up until a secret passageway merged into a large, multi-leveled cavern. Everything was colorful, vivid and bright. Not at all like what the Keybearer had been expecting from someplace deep within the underground. It was stark and somehow wondrous, a marvel to look at from every angle and yet he had no time to truly admire it.

With a key that had been hidden underneath his shirt on a string, Riku opened a single door and disappeared inside.

Sora waited for a breath, creeping as close as he dared and knew that whatever he sought for waited on the other side. A door between them, seemed vaguely reminiscent, and yet this time it was different. What was beyond was something unknown, but not horrifying or malevolent. This was what the silver haired youth had been so desperately wanting to hide from him, a part of himself that Sora wasn't meant to see. Whatever the brunette had thought it would have been still had no way to prepare him for what he witnessed.

Darkness wasn't supposed to be beautiful but Riku challenged that preconception in every single way.

The silver haired youth was gliding, diving, flowing through years of practiced moves in a routine that melded together as if it were a dance. Sora watched, awestruck, sliding through the door he had silently opened just wide enough to let him through and stopped dead cold in his tracks when he did. It took his breath away to see such precision and decisiveness in action, all centered around a sparring sword that had long since lost its edge. It wasn't about the weapon, but the power that trailed through it, around it. 

Against a backdrop of rainbow colors the Darkness stood out ever more unmistakably, enhanced to show off the deadly force that it was. There was little to no effort taken to exert it, and every bit that coursed from Riku’s body did nothing to even begin to destroy him. If was as if the older youth had been born with it, despite that Sora knew it was impossible, and even he could feel the thrum of energy surging about him.

This was Riku at full strength, yelling and slicing through air with a vengeance only he could have, and all Sora could think of was how seeing this was all he ever wanted. To see the expression of Riku’s soul, however tortured, distorted by Darkness and yet somehow pure and whole. Deadly beauty, but still magnificent nonetheless. For a brief second he wondered if Darkness was really all that terrible, if in some distorted way, it could be crafted and molded into something… something that didn’t have to be merely destroy.

The silver haired youth whirled, and startled green eyes met his own as his friend stumbled from the shock of discovering that he hadn't been alone.

“Sora-” The combatant croaked, righting himself heavily before he could approach him with careful steps. “What the- Why are you here!?”

“I- I followed you!” The brunette was stammering from excitement, practically bouncing as he continued to speak. “You- you were amazing doing all those moves! I can't believe how you did all that! I never thought- I mean I've always known you were good but now-! Show me again!”

“What?” The blood drained from his friend’s face and he looked at him incredulously. “You want me to show you…? No! Do you understand what you're asking for!? You're not even supposed to be here!”

“Please!” Sora pleaded frantically. “I promise I won't tell anyone about this place if you want, but please, please, let me fight with you!”

“No.”

“I won't hold you back-”

“No.” Riku growled and turned his back abruptly with a heavy sigh.

“You used to say how much you enjoyed sparring back on the island!” The brunette only continued to argue, unrelenting and undeterred.

“This isn't the island.”

“Please Riku…” Sora walked around to face him, looking up at his friend with all the sincerity he could manage. “Just this once… and I promise I'll never bother you about it again.”

Hard green eyes softened, just like they always did with him. There was no just once. It never could be, but they both knew that. Just as they both already knew exactly how the conversation was going to end, no matter how long Riku thought he could prolong it.

“...fine.” The older youth sighed heavily, but Sora almost couldn't help but notice the slight upbeat in his friend’s steps as he went to go grab another practice sword.

Sora may not have been the strongest fighter, but he knew that against Riku he could never lose.

~❣️~

He should have known better, that was all Riku could conceivably think of as he grasped the handle of his dummy weapon. Should have been more aware of his surroundings, but then, how could he have know that _this_ morning was to be the one that Sora decided to sate his curiosity? The older youth had convinced himself that he hadn't been losing his prowess, not even if Ansem wasn't there to constantly force him to perform better. He continued to train because he feared what would happen to him otherwise, but this time it was going to be different. This was meant to be for fun.

“Don't hold back on me.” Sora taunted him as they took their battle stances apart from each other.

Riku grimaced and wondered if he even knew how. When it had been with Hope he hadn't really had the option of restraining himself. Ansem had made it painfully clear that if he hadn't pushed himself as hard as possible, punishment would do so for him. Everything in that castle had been a test, and now being asked to change his mindset entirely was proving to be far more difficult that he had anticipated. Practicing for the sheer joy of it wasn't something he'd known for years, if he could even reclaim that lost aspect of his life at all.

“You say this like I've ever gone easy on you.” He countered and with that began the first blow of their mock fight. An upward swing from his opponent that was entirely too slow caused Riku to reevaluate just what he was going up against. Sora wasn't bad at fighting, had never been horrible at it, but clearly their level of experience had grown even further apart.

Too slow, too predictable, much like someone else Riku had trained. With a couple of easy parrys the Keybearer was disarmed, reeling as he struggled to hide the shame of being so efficiently outmaneuvered.

“What- How did you-?” The younger one hastily grabbed up his weapon off the floor yet again, readjusting his stance and doing his best to keep his breath in check.

“Watch your feet.” Riku corrected him, demonstrating what he meant for Sora to imitate. His body fell into the proper placement without so much as a twitch otherwise. Firm, but ready to move at a moment’s notice. “Don't stand so rigid.”

“I'm not rigid!” There was almost a pout as the brunette spoke, and a distinct brightness in his eyes. “You're rigid!”

“Prove it.”

A few swings, countered effortlessly by both parties and somehow the two friends fell back into a pattern that neither of them could have predicted. Swings, dodges and occasional curses came from both of them as they both tried to outdo one another. For what felt like hours the pair continued to practice, without so much as a break. Their senses were consumed by it, their ears ringing with the sound of the practice swords meeting each other time and again.

Even without much guidance, Sora noticeably improved, and Riku was reminded of how quick of a learner his friend actually was. The Keybearer seldom made the same mistake more than a few times, and his adaptability had the potential to make him a worthy adversary. He could be great, undeniably so even with a weapon such as a Keyblade if only he dedicated himself more.

A dip to the right, and Riku brought up his sword arm to block a swing he already knew was coming. Steel rung out loudly as the two swords collided harshly. Sora moved back, undoubtedly to ready himself for another attack but Riku was determined not to give him that opportunity.

He spun, ready to raise himself and cast a burst of Darkness that would undoubtedly cause his friend to go flying away. Riku sucked his breath in, feeling the drawing of his power into his left hand, so caught up in what he was doing he failed to register the pulsating knot buried in the side of his neck. Everything was in place until white hair and golden eyes greeted him with a bow.

“It's been far too long my pet.”

He froze, instantaneously trembling, the blood in his veins stopped dead within him.

Ansem.

The Heartless took a single, powerful, menacing step forward.

“No! No, you can't be here! You can't be here!!” He cried, feeling every bit as helpless, drained, weak as he did not so long beforehand.

“I'm with you always my pet.” The man grinned, looming over him as a hand reached up to touch the skin above the throbbing stone that Riku suddenly felt only all too well. “Time to come home.”

“No please… please this isn’t real. This can’t be. Ansem… no…” But no matter how much he pleaded, the fingers felt undeniably tangible.

“Come home Riku. I’m waiting for you.” Ansem leered, his face so close that the youth was overcome by his unmistakable scent. With only a graze of skin the silver haired youth was reminded of every touch, every bit of contact and lust and heated, passionate need. It came back to him in a wave of memories he had tried to forget, and with a rising knot of nausea growing from his stomach, he reeled.

“NO!” The youth backed away as fast as he could and shrieked, arms flailing about in front of him and he released his what should have only been a surge of power that instead became a consolidated slice meant to rip its target to pieces. Whatever it took to put something, anything between him and the Master of Darkness.

There was only the sound of something wet being rent apart as the vision fell away. A cough, a gurgle of noise rose from Riku’s feet.

“I think…” A voice said weakly. “... I forgot to block.”

He looked down and saw blood. Brunette hair and tanned skin mopped in it. It was everywhere, more blood than he had seen since the day Hope had…

“Sora… I…” Riku mumbled his words almost incoherently, shocked from the horror of what had just occurred. “Oh no…”

He had hurt Sora.

“...should have blocked…” Sky blue eyes began to close, fogged over from pain.

“No no no Sora wake up! Help… help… I need help!” The older youth dove to gather the smaller, lighter body into his arms, struggling to hold the slick mess of limbs that were all but lifeless. It was then that he could see the gash, formed almost parallel to the brunette’s collarbone, stretching across his chest and reaching to his shoulder. A deep wound, straight into muscle and bone and bleeding profusely with each passing second.

Sora was dying and only he could do anything about it. Only him, who had inadvertently done this.

The power of the stone died down, and it took everything Riku had to remember how to move. He had never phased with someone else before, but he knew that he wasn’t allowed to hesitate. With a cry he forced himself forward, phasing as far as he could manage, out of the training hall and into the caverns, alighting for only a breath of a moment before phasing further. Every time he could he listened for his friend’s breaths, however shallow, needing to know that it wasn't too late.

There was only one place he could go. One place that could fix the grievous destruction Riku had inevitably wrought and he dashed through the halls like a spectre being chased by death itself. He didn't see anything other than the brunette spikes bobbing in his arms every time he launched them forward. Memory guided his feet with every step, taking him further than he ever thought possible.

Sora couldn’t die, not here, not now.

Not by his hand.

“...can't… feel my arm…” Sora whimpered and cried out at any decent jostle. If he had the strength, the younger youth would have squirmed out if Riku’s hold, desperate to overcome the pain that he was clearly absorbed in.

“You'll be ok…” Riku panted, nearly colliding into a wall out of sheer exhaustion. He fell to his knees instead, arms heavy from the weight he had been carrying but refusing to allow his friend to fall. No matter what, he couldn't, wouldn't, let anything more happen to his best friend. Not so long as he still had even a single breath left in him. “Hang on for me… please…”

_You can make it._

Terra’s voice, encouraging, steady and strong. He’d heard this voice before, right after Hope had died and subsequently his memory had blacked out for some time past then. It could have been the trauma that provoked the latent ghost forward, not that the silver haired youth really had any concept on how such possessions generally worked. For the moment, he needed whatever assistance he could have, no matter their source.

With a jolt of renewed energy Riku rushed once more, ignoring anyone he saw along the way. More than once he knocked them aside, feeling the air stinging in his lungs. Each labor of his legs and the magics he expended was nothing, nothing in comparison to what Sora must have been feeling. Pain of the body he could endure better than most and he let that resolution nip his heels in action. The castle yielded into a blurred mass of colors, sounds and smells. Necessity told him where to go. Guided him into the main room of the medical bay.

“Someone help!” He screamed, half tumbling through the door, clinging to Sora’s body like he could single-handedly spare him the pain of his wound. “Please someone help him!”

Staff surrounded the pair in an instant, spurred by his pleas or the sight of two blood-soaked youths crumpled to the floor. They tried to help the both of them as if they were injured, but Riku recoiled away from anyone that tried to come close, only allowing Sora to be carted away once he was convinced his friend would be taken care of and not himself. Orders were called out between the medics, terms and phrases that the silver haired youth didn't know but wanted to believe that everything meant his friend would be healed.

He didn't follow them, couldn't, not with the knowledge that he had caused every bit of Sora’s agony. Up until the very last second he watched them disappear, and was almost certain that before the door shut he saw one weak, trembling hand that reached towards him. Something in his chest ached at the sight of it, hurt in a way that he hadn't known before. 

The silver haired youth choked, wiping his hands on his pants but it could not rid himself of what he had done. Seeped in blood, there was nothing to hide his guilt, and neither did he want to. Riku had done the unthinkable, the one thing that everyone feared would happen.

He'd almost killed Sora.

 _He will survive._ Terra tried his best to comfort him.

“I could have killed him…” The youth blankly responded out loud to a voice that only he could hear. “I could have killed him with my own two hands…”

_It wasn't your fault._

A lie, and Riku snarled in response.

It wasn't long before a young doctor emerged from beyond, clipboard in hand and with a grim countenance that immediately put him on edge.

“He's stable.” She looked at him discerningly, assessing every bit of him to undoubtedly try and understand the situation. “From what we can tell he should make a full recovery, in time. He's very fortunate to have be brought here so quickly, otherwise the situation would have been a lot more serious.”

“Good. I’m… thankful… to you for taking care of him.” Riku turned, spinning on his heel to exit the medical bay. He had found out all he needed to know. Sora was alive. That was all that mattered.

“The Queen has to be notified.” She quipped at his back. “I have to be able to explain to her what happened.”

“Tell her…” He paused, grinding his jaw to stop himself from an onslaught of emotions he couldn't afford to release. “Tell her it was me. They were right about me. They were right. I'm… I'm sorry.”

Before she could respond he was already gone.

Stupid. Stupid to think he actually had a chance at happiness. Stupid to believe that Ansem would release him so easily, without any resistance. Riku grimaced, stalking through the hall and berated himself because he should have known better. The stone in his neck hadn't been removed. Why did he think he could get away from it? 

_What are you doing?_ Terra asked anxiously as he took off into the castle.

“What I have to do.” Riku couldn’t run, too exhausted, too broken in body and spirit to push himself any harder. “Going home.”

He couldn't stay. Not with Ansem’s words still ringing loudly in his ears. There was no choice. There never was a choice. There was only a respite, and now that brief calm in the storm of his life was over.

 _You can't…_ The voice of the older youth sounded so far away that he almost didn't hear it. _Don't do this. This is what he wants._

“He's going to get it either way. If I don't do this now, he'll make me do something even worse. Ansem always gets what he wants.”

The shipyard was packed with vessels, many from other worlds that had once been filled with refugees. Now they sat in silence, empty and void of the purpose they had originally been intended for. Riku picked out the closest one he could, not caring who saw him. No one could stop him now anyway. There was one that seemed to be in the best of shape, small, and hopefully sturdy enough to make the voyage.

 _Don't do this._ Terra begged of him earnestly, pleading with every last fiber of his frayed heart. _You have friends, they'll understand. It was an accident-_

“I won't have any friends left if I continue to not do what he wants me to.” Riku snapped back, a rage of hurt building inside him. The pain inside was blinding, suffocating. This could have been his world, his friends would been safe within it if only… If only… He slammed his fists against the exterior of the ship, too numb to feel the impact. “I refuse to have another person’s death on my hands!”

He entered into the cockpit, half thinking of how he had never really learned how to fly before when suddenly the ship came to life all by itself. Across the screen in front of him a message appeared in boldened letters.

**O.13 Override initiated. Destination?**

With some hesitancy he typed in his answer.

 _You could run away…_ The suggestion came without any real conviction.

“There's no use trying to hide. With this… thing inside me he’ll find me. One way or another.” Riku sat down heavily in the pilot’s chair, the weight of a world of suffering bearing down on him. If he closed his eyes he could still see Sora so perfectly, unhurt, unhindered by life and full of joy. For a few months he had gotten to be alongside his best friend, and he tried to tell himself that it was enough. It was something Riku could hold onto for the rest of his life, something Ansem would never take away from him.

Physical pain could not amount to what he felt. There was only agony at the thought of what he had done. What he had allowed to happen. He should have known better.

Sora, his friend, the only person who had believed in him unerringly for so long. The one person who could see the youth not for what he had become, but who he truly was underneath. Who had chased off his nightmares, wiped away his tears and shared in his brief moments of joy. His only friend, and Riku had cut Sora down. Whether or not it was an accident didn't matter. It had been his wretched Darkness that had hurt him, not anyone else's.

There was only one thing left to do, and Riku hoped that it would be enough.

 _Better to run, than live a slave._ The Terra’s ethereal voice whispered in his ear.

“He calls me ‘pet’ you know.” The engines roared as he left every good thing in his life behind. Green eyes watched through the glass of a nearby window as the world dropped out of sight underneath. “And you know what all pets must do at the end of the day? Return to their owners.”

~❣️~

It shouldn’t have come to this. This couldn’t be happening, not now. Not when everything had been going so well.

Kairi had gone to visit her wounded friend, watched over his bedside as long as she had dared before she knew that her precious time had evaporated. She swallowed her tears, pushed back all the anger and frustration that came with seeing one of her closest companions disintegrated down to a shell of his bubbly, lively self. This was the second instance that she had been forced to witness one of her friends on a hospital bed, and the second time that she had to deal with the fallout of it.

The doctors had wisely put him on a vast variety of medications and painkillers, and even though she had been promised over and over that his recovery was almost certain, she knew that the consequences of this was greater than anyone else yet knew. No one yet found out the exact circumstances of what had occurred, but it hadn't taken much imagination to put the missing pieces of the puzzle together. Sora was injured, Riku was missing. That was all she really needed to know.

Part of being a ruler was damage control and most of the time it was easy. When it came to housing refugees and saving worlds, anyone with half a brain could do it. In those situations the right thing was simple, easy. This was far beyond one of those. She didn’t know how she could convey her feelings to those she trusted. How she felt as if she had completely failed at the one task she wanted to be competent in.

“You have a gentle heart.” Aerith spoke softly to her while they waited together in one of her private meeting rooms. The young woman and Cid had been relatively silent in their Queen’s presence, neither having the fortitude to try and have a true conversation with her.

“Do I?” The Queen asked harshly, brushing back a few stray strands of hair back behind her ears. 

“Of course you do. You’d do anything for those you love.”

“Anything is a very strong word.”

There was a strong knock at the door, and without having to ask Kairi already knew who it was.

“Your Majesty…” Diz beckoned from the doorway, entering with his usual air of self confidence and certainty. “I hope I have not kept you waiting too long.”

“No not long.” She admitted and carefully nodded her approval of his arrival from her seat. Her palms were clasped in front of her on the table, white knuckled from the effort of restraining herself from saying or doing anything she would regret later on. It would have been impossible not to notice Aerith’s and Cid’s shift of discomfort from the man’s presence, but then he had that effect on all her friends. No one trusted him, let alone wished him to remain one of her advisors. Still Kairi let him stay, for exactly times like these.

“There are already rumors spreading about the castle.” The man sat opposite of her, adjusting what she considered to be a cumbersome amount of robes. “I would urge your Highness to make a public statement quickly to dissuade any more damage to the crown.”

“What damage?” Cid sniffed indignantly and asked. “I’m sure that all of this was an accident. There’s certainly no way that Riku would intentionally try to hurt Sora. Not with the way those two acted around each other.”

“The damage to the Crown’s reputation.” Diz pursed his lips harshly, glowering as if he was the only one with the common sense to have foreseen this all along. “It’s no secret about the fact that the boy was permitted to stay in the castle by her Majesty _personally_. If this isn’t handled correctly then every decision from here on out will be questioned or even disregarded.”

“What would you suggest then?” Kairi pressed him, interrupting her female friend before she had the chance to speak. Aerith bowed her head, whether from remorse or something else, the Queen couldn’t tell.

“Publically announce that you exiled the perpetrator. I’m sure you’ve seen the flight logs from Cid already, and there’s no reason to hide it any longer. Use this as a chance to prove to the people of this world that you can and will take action against those who would seek to plunge this world back into Darkness.”

“You can’t be serious…” Aerith breathed, eyes wide and horrified at the other advisor’s unabashed callousness. “You’re asking her to denounce their lifelong friendship for a political agenda.”

“This isn’t about an agenda. This is about protecting what only we can. If this same instance had occurred with anyone else, anyone who wasn’t her friend, could you honestly tell me you wouldn’t agree with this course of action?” The older man sneered back, folding his arms defensively in front of him. “That boy already solidified his guilt the moment he left Hollow Bastion. This is the easiest and best possible solution any of us could have hoped for.”

“That’s a cold way to look at it, and that’s coming from someone who’s watched Darkness rip this world apart.” Cid shook his head despondently.

“Sometimes it takes a cold approach to ensure our survival.”

Kairi gritted her teeth, noting the way Aerith silently pleaded with her with a single worried look. On any other day, she may have let it sway her. She wanted to listen. Wanted to listen to her heart that said that everything Diz had offered went against all she had ever stood for. At one time this had been her world to rule, her world to mold into whatever she had wanted it to be.

Over the last few months, her life had been forced to realize how very wrong she had been. No matter how many decisions she had made to benefit the few closest to her, the many were always the ones to suffer the most.

“I will make a statement in the next few hours about it.” She lifted her chin up a little higher as she made her announcement and rose, both hands braced against the tabletop. “I expect the full support of everyone here when I do.”

“Your Majesty, I urge you to find another way…” Aerith pleas almost sounded like a whimper. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Can I count on you to back me on this?” Kairi confronted her hesitation, pulling back to put a bit of distance between them. “Or does your loyalty only go so far?”

“Of course I will be there for you.” The brunette nearly choked, looking to be on the verge of tears. “Even… even if I don’t entirely agree…”

“And you Cid?” The Queen interrupted and turned to face him, stoic in every sense of the word.

“If you think it’s for the good of the world, Your Majesty.” The Shipmaster responded with a certain level of underlying resentment. “I just make sure your ships keep running.”

“So be it. Diz if you would be so kind as to-“ She stopped as soon as she saw spiked brunette hair enter through the unlocked door.

“Where is he?” Sora stumbled, catching himself along the wall before Aerith had a chance to aid him. He looked worthy of death, with skin too devoid of blood flow, and a glassiness covering his eyes. Still in a hospital gown, Kairi concluded he must have somehow snuck past everyone. Either that or threatened those who opposed him with their lives.

Kairi breathed deeply and turned to slowly stride over to a large paned window, pulling the curtains away to allow the light of day to filter into the otherwise secluded room. She steadied herself, internally bracing her shoulders and made doubly sure that no matter what she didn’t unintentionally clench her fists in front of the others. As a Queen she had to exude precision, acuteness in everything she did, but having to face Sora in this manner was more than she could physically bear.

Whatever inner strength she had left in her she called upon it, basking in its presence because this wasn’t what she had wanted to happen. If Riku hadn’t succumb to his dark self, and if Sora hadn’t been so stubborn to try and see past every glaring mistake his friend had made for years, how much better would their lives have been? She couldn’t convince herself this was the correct course of action, but it had to be the lesser of two evils.

“Where is who, Sora? How did you leave the medical bay?” She could only question him back, each word cutting into her. Under no circumstance would she turn around to look at her friend. Kairi was a Queen and still her legs felt weak beneath her. Her throat tightened, and she bit worriedly on her lower lip.

“Riku…” Sora strained, gasping through what must have been pain renewed with movement. “Where is Riku?!”

There was silence from everyone in the room. A fear to dare challenge her, challenge what was right, or what should have been done. Sometimes decision making was easy. Sometimes saying a few words might as well as stolen the life out of her.

“He’s gone.” Her voice didn’t crack even when she was sure that it would. “He’s gone from Hollow Bastion.”

It was all predictable, the way Sora took a few seconds to process her statement. Even the way he shifted, still with Aerith holding onto him. She knew his thoughts even before they came to him. He’d wonder how, why Riku would have left. More importantly to the Keybearer though would be to figure out long it would take to retrieve his best friend again.

“We can track him right?” The brunette asked to all the people surrounding him, his voice still weak but full of resolve. “We know where he went so it’ll be easy to find him again.”

“Sora.” Kairi exhaled strongly, her gut sinking lower by the second. “We’re not going after him. As of today… he’s never to come back to Hollow Bastion again.”

“...what!?”

Her heart was racing and a cold sweat raced along her spine. There was returning from this moment. Not now. Not ever.

“He can’t come back.” Hot needles stung the corners of her eyes and she angrily wiped them away before anyone could notice. “Not after hurting you like this. I’m sorry. I know you did everything you could to save him, we all did, but he’s lost.”

“He’s not lost!!!” Sora yelled, yanking his body free from Aerith to wobble his way in between the window and Kairi. He forcefully put himself in her line of vision, stared at her bitterly, trembling. “I can find him again! I can bring him back!!!”

“Not anymore.” She faced down her friend, drawing herself up as tall as she could make herself be. “I can’t watch you ruin your life for someone who doesn’t want to be saved. I care about you too much to see you go through another two years of almost killing yourself for him.”

“You can’t do this!! You can’t stop me from finding him!” The brunette was clearly panicking but still continued to challenge her authority, and she wondered if he would be able to hold himself up in his current state.

“My decision is final.” She didn’t allow herself to falter and waved a hand toward the Keybearer, beckoning her advisor for assistance. “Aerith, take Sora back to his chambers please and make sure his wounds are redressed properly. Since he has complete disregard for his own well being, I want him monitored at all times and cared for.”

“You don’t care! You never cared!” The Keybearer spat in a rage, looking like he was nearly on the verge of wanting to tear the whole castle down with him. “Ever since you became Queen all you’ve become obsessed with is ruling!”

“...that’s not true.” She shot back at him, but the venom in his words still tore a hole in her heart. “And maybe one day you’ll realize that’s the truth. Your life doesn’t have to revolve around just one person. Your destiny is much greater than that, and if it takes destroying our friendship to prove that to you, then that’s the choice I make. I won’t lose two friends to Darkness. Not if I can help it.”

Everything in the room was heavy. Sora reached, slowly, gently to take her arm and held onto her like she was the only source that could keep him afloat from drowning.

“I don’t have another destiny… not without him.” He whispered to her through cracked lips.

She blanched, realizing all too quickly exactly what his statement meant.

“Sora... tell me you didn’t…” Kairi gripped his shoulders, wanting to shake the truth out of him. To hear him say that her assumptions were all a lie. He didn’t answer her, but the expression on his face said more than a lifetime of words ever could. His face was still as stone, but not from courage, only from total numbness.

“Did what exactly?” Diz pried when it was clear that the brunette wouldn’t reply of his own volition.

The Queen let go, sighing in absolute defeat.

“He and Riku shared a Paopu fruit together.” She declared, peeling his grasp off of her and moved back across the room to sink down into the chair she had previously occupied. “If the legends are even remotely true, their destinies are forever intertwined.”

There was silence in the face of old magic. Light and Darkness may have been the guiding forces over all the worlds, but there were some who believed that there were things greater even than that. Destiny was a force that couldn’t be contended with, that controlled all things, even those that wanted to deny its existence. 

“...we were kids.” Sora’s voice barely broke the silence. “Please… Kairi… you have to understand. I have to go after him. I have to.”

“Aerith.” She called, and the young advisor nearly lept at being beckoned. “His room please. And take Cid with you as well. All the gummi ships are to be docked indefinitely. No one is to be allowed off this world unless it is by royal decree.”

Sora was led away by two of her most trusted friends, each of them with looks of varying degrees of emotions.

“Your Majesty.” The Shipmaster nodded in response to her order. He helped gathered the smaller youth up, staying far away from stained bandages. “C’mon kid. You need to rest.”

Sora followed compliantly, dumbstruck, not realizing how he repeated the same few sentences over in a loop.

“I have to be with him… I have to…”

Whatever else was said was lost outside the door.

Diz shifted but remained in his seat, all while Kairi buried her face in her hands.

“I am sorry-“ He tried to comfort her only to be cut off.

“I don’t want to hear it!” She felt as if she was screaming, even if her voice didn’t carry as loud as she hoped. The older man bowed his head as she rebuked him, eyes cast down to the table. “Not from you! I don’t want to hear about how you were right all along. Ever since the day you first came here to become my advisor you’ve warned me about exactly this. Tell me… Tell me what you told me that day!”

“Your Majesty, I don’t think now is the time…” He recoiled from her, as he should have. As he should have been doing for years. She decided to answer her one question in his stead, grinding out her words with complete disgust.

“You told me that there would come a day that I would have to choose between doing what is best for my friends and doing what is best for this world! Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“And what was your prediction about if this should happen?”

“Th-that…” Diz stammered, something that Kairi never thought she’d see. “That if such a day should come that you would want someone supporting you. Someone who wasn’t a friend, but who held the best interest of the entire world at heart.”

“And is that person still you?” She heaved, roiling in her anger.

“I live to serve Hollow Bastion, Your Majesty. Always.”

“Good.” She shot back, colder than ice. “Now get out of my sight.”

Advisors be damned. Friends be damned. Loyalty… be damned. She watched as her final advisor left her alone to question whether everything she’d done had only ever been in vain. Her friends would hate her. Her advisors may question every motive, but Sora was safe. Her world was safe, and that was all she could control.

When the door shut behind Diz was the first and only solitary time she allowed herself to descend into heartbroken sobs.

~❣️~

He felt sick every time he thought about where he was going. More than once Riku considered changing course, of not going straight back into the lion’s den to where he had suffered and Hope had met his untimely end. No matter how tempting it was though, he never deviated. Time fragmented into sporadic bits and pieces of clarity, broken by his needing to eat or sleep. Otherwise, there was nothing. No voices, no guidance. Just the drone of engines and computer fans.

It was only when the guidance system sounded the alarm that he finally realized that his journey had come to its end.

Keyblade Graveyard, exactly how he remembered it. Still desolate and skeletal. Brittle, brown, and with its only habitable structure that slowly came into view. The castle. Ansem’s castle, unguarded by the Barrier Heartless, with outer gates already thrown open.

He had to do this. He could sacrifice himself one last time. If this was to be his legacy, then it would be acceptable so long as Sora’s could continue on unhindered. The Keybearer always deserved a better friend than him anyway.

The dry air engulfed him as soon as he had landed and opened the hatch. It took a few seconds for him to acclimate himself back to it, to remember to take shallow breaths and not focus too much on the sting in his throat. He steeled himself, ready to cross a threshold that no one else but himself and Ansem could see. As soon as he took his first step onto the dust-like ground, he knew that he had entirely given up.

_“You’re going to phase through it!”_

The memory of Hope’s voice sounded all too clear, and all Riku could attribute the phenomenon to was nothing more than a trick of the wind. Still it reminded him of too much. He pushed through the gusts, determined, desperate to remove himself from the courtyard and everything it meant to him.

_“You need to get out of here, before it’s too late.”_

_“...did you really think I’d let you leave this world alive?”_

More words from a voice he didn’t recognize whipped past him, yet some part of him instinctively knew that once before all of this had been said. Those he didn’t bother with though, no matter how eerie and prophetic they sounded. They didn’t make sense. They weren’t for him.

_“...What have you done with him!?”_

_“...You must choose… save one friend from death or let the other fall into complete Darkness. Whatever you decide, their fates solely rest upon you.”_

_“...I… You should have just let me die.”_

_“...Go! Finish what we started! Don’t let Xehanort win!”_

_“...He was nothing without me…”_

_My friends were here._ Terra’s voice filtered through the garbled mess. _They were here on this world that’s been connected, tied to the Darkness._

Riku continued to walk through the sounds of clashing steel and the screams of ensuing pain. Somehow he finally made it across the courtyard, coming to stop at a pair of familiar double doors. In his dreams he saw the doors, the gateway to his eternal punishment, and he had fled every time but now. Now he had to face it. Now he had already made his choice.

He lifted his hand to knock and even before he had the chance to connect the monstrous door swung easily open on its hinges.

Golden eyes awaited him, and a smile that sought to drag his very soul down straight into the deepest circle of torment.

“Welcome back my pet. I’ve been expecting you.”


End file.
